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In a move made to compete with Skype and possibly Apple, Google is now offering a feature which allows users to use the phone to contact one another via Gmail. It will be interesting to see if Google will provide better reception than that of the iPhone. And if it eventually provides the ability to use this from a mobile phone, then it will truly compete with the iPhone as a service provider.
For now, the feature is only available in the US, but once it is available throughout the world, it will be interesting to see how this will affect the price of Google stock. Advanced investors may be able to take advantage of binary options and game the news ticker, watching carefully for when Google makes the feature available worldwide and when it expands features. You can see our previous entry written in March for more of an explanation on how to use this strategy to make a return on your investment.

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Apple’s quarterly profit shot up by 78% due to sales of its iPad and latest version of the iPhone 4. This was in $1 billion more in revenue than Wall Street had predicted, and Apple’s 4th quarter revenue is projected to be $18 billion.

The 3rd quarter increase in sales is in spite of consumer and media reports and media which have both announced a problem in reception with the iPhone4. Steve Jobs’ reaction was to sell free cases for the phones.
It is also in stark contrast to other technology stocks, such as Intel, Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems, and Yahoo all dropped in the 3rd quarter.

Of these three, Microsoft is the leader in profit, with $4.25 billion compared with Apple’s $3.25 billion and Google’s $1.8 billion. Profit dollars come from the release of Windows 7 (with 175 million copies sold), Bing, and Office 2010. Microsoft has announced that it will later release a smartphone and the Kinect.

Public announcements of stock sales is an excellent time to invest in binary options, as we will discuss in a later post.

Major Events of the Week

US stocks decrease after Bernanke testified to Congress and reported a “unusually uncertain” economic outlook. This week Obama signed the Wall Street Reform Bill, which calls for more government regulations for loans and financial products and the creation of a new agency, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

BP announced this week the successful capping of the oil leak and that no more oil being leaked into the Gulf. Shares in BP increased after the announcement, but a brewing storm in the Caribbean might reopen the leak.

A short look at the week’s closing:

Stock Market Summary
The Dow Jones Industrial average fell by 164 points at one point and closed at 10120.53
S&P Stock Index fell by 13.89 points to close at 1069.59
The Nasdaq fell by 35.16 points to close at 2,187.33 due to the drop in technology stocks.

Commodity Market
Oil dropped to below $78 a barrel

Currencies
Dollar rose against the Euro
Yen rose against the dollar

Binary options really came of age in 2008, with the addition of them to the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) and the North American Derivatives Exchange (NADEX). Since then, their popularity has exploded among both the financial trading and gaming industries.
Once offered in these major financial exchanges, they became a part of the exchange market and brought government regulations and taxes.

In traditional trading, traders predict the precise value of stocks in the future, buying a contract for that amount. The expiration date can be set several months or weeks in advance. As the price increases or decreases, the owner of the future can buy more futures contracts or sell them. With binary options, contracts expire much more quickly, and traders simply wait out the trade until the time of expiry instead of buying and selling up until the time of expiry. Although it is much less flexible for traders, it is also much simpler. Some more experienced traders see binary options as a means for beginning traders to get experience trading in the traditional market. Then again, many experienced traders are now getting involved in the binary options market!

With its exponential increase in popularity we have witnessed the same principles of binary options trading applied to fixed-odds gaming on the weather, television shows, sports, and political events. There are hundreds of online sites with fixed-odds gaming of different teams and events from all over the world.

In an unprecedented move, China announced that they would ease the peg of the Chinese yuan, or Renminbi (RMB) to the dollar and allow the currency to move more freely.

This move will increase the value of China’s currency, making exports more expensive. In the past, the lower value of the yuan and the cost of foreign workers low, making it an excellent place for American companies such as Walmart and Target to have overseas factories. Now these companies will take a hit with rising prices of production, whereas companies exporting to China, such as General Electric and Caterpillar, will see a rise in sales as their products become cheaper in the Chinese market.

Now, Western products will become more attractive as a cheaper Chinese alternative becomes unavailable. In addition, foreign worker strikes, unthinkable in the past, are occurring in various Chinese factories of American companies such as Toyota and Honda. If workers succeed in increasing worker pay, it will cause an additional rise in the cost of Chinese products.

China is continuing to monitor its currency to allow the rise to happen gradually and dissuade traders from buying currency and easily profiting.

The Chinese market is likely to rally in response to the change. It could be a good time to watch this market or options affected by it, either indirectly or directly, and come to our site and invest.

Oil Prices

Among the different developments likely to influence oil prices for both the short and long-term future are:

Obama’s decision to delay drilling near Alaska until 2011

Increasing general restrictions on rigs and platforms in US territories

Regulations causing fewer jobs than expected for the future

Increased demand for oil during the summer months

Chinese gasoline demand is weak in light of increased sales for vehicles in 2010

When crisis like these happen in the markets, it can be a good time to invest in binary options.
Oil prices this past week rose in light of the public’s sentiment that the world economy is recovering. Crude oil rose to $78 dollars a barrel, in spite of a greater than expected supply of US crude stockpiles, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Oil prices are expected to rise further as the summer progresses and demand for oil increases.

BP Stock Prices

BP stock has risen more than 9% as budgeting of $20 billion has been set aside for a clean-up policy. BP insists that they will find companies who carry responsibility for the disaster and have them pay their due. BP seems to have enough money to carry the financial burden of cleanup, according to most sources. In addition to the cleanup costs, Obama has said he will demand that an additional fund be set up to compensate those affected by the oil spill.

Today’s announcement that day-to-day operation will be handled by managing director Robert Dudley, who is experienced in handling sensitive assignments for BP in Russia and Africa could also affect stock prices.

After the BP oil catastrophe, President Obama banned drilling in US waters deeper than 500 feet on May 30, opponents of the ban warned of a possible surge in oil prices.

Futhermore, his decision to delay drilling near Alaska until 2011 caused deep concern to oil companies already expected to open operations in that area, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co. Opponents of the regulations warn of unemployment rising in the oil industry in particular and related industries as well as fewer jobs will be available than expected.

In addition to the ban additional regulations were proposed by government officials that include increasing standards and frequency of safety inspections of rigs and platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
The question remains as to what these regulations will do to the price of oil and the price of stocks of oil companies over the long and short term.

A Hungarian spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced last week that an impending economic default is possible given the current economic situation. This combined with past concern over other shaky economies, such as Portugal and Spain, caused increasing fears of the value of the Euro, which fell to a new low of 1.2050 against the dollar.

The spokesman, Peter Szijjarto, accused the past government of covering up lies and information. A detailed report of the Hungarian government’s fiscal plans.should soon be released.
The Daily Forex News reported today that in a Eurogroup meeting yesterday that Eurogroup head and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker was “not really concerned about Hungary” and emphasized that the situation was not at all comparable to the economic situation in Greece.

The Hungarian report on its fiscal budget should play a big part in investor confidence in the Euro, which will affect Euro prices.

North Korea announced Tuesday that it would sever ties with South Korea and no longer continue to adhere to the non-aggression pact with Seoul.

In response, the Asian markets fell – Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average by 3.1%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index by 3.5%, Taiwan’s Taiex by 3.2%, Thailand’s SET Index gave up 3.1%, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index by 2.7%. Other indices throughout the world also fell, including Australia’s S&P/ASX 200, India’s Sensex, and Indonesia’s JSX.

But by Wednesday many of these markets had recovered, at least for the short-term. Many market analysts explained the rise of world markets as a reaction of investors looking to buy investments cheaply due to the fall in stock prices.

It remains to be seen how the market will continue to react with the rising political tensions in Korea and the continued economic turmoil in Europe. These political tensions can be a good time to invest in binary options, especially in currencies like the Euro and yen.