Stocks end the week lower amid rising tensions in the Middle East

AP Photo/Richard Drew

US stocks finished the week lower amid rising tensions in the Middle East as Iran reportedly seized two British tankers.
That took some of the luster away from Microsoft’s strong earnings report, which sent the company’s shares to an intraday record high.
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Major US indexes fell on Friday amid rising tensions in the Middle East. The major headline was Iran reportedly seizing two British tankers — a development seen as a major escalation against the US and UK.

Meanwhile, Microsoft maintained its spot as the world’s most valuable company after reporting better than expected revenue and earnings per share in the second quarter.

The American technology company posted a 19% increase in cloud revenue with Microsoft Azure by 64% since last year. Shares of Microsoft rose as much as 3%, and pushed its market value to $1.05 trillion.

Beyond that, President Donald Trump accused the Fed of having a ‘faulty thought process’ on Friday in his last attempt to pressure the central bank into cutting rates.

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"We are in a World competition, & winning big, but it is no thanks to the Federal Reserve," Trump posted on Twitter. "Had they not acted so fast and ‘so much,’ we would be doing even better than we are doing right now. This is our chance to build unparalleled wealth and success for the U.S., GROWTH, which would greatly reduce % debt. Don’t blow it!"

The fed is widely expected to lower borrowing costs during its July meeting, which has put downward pressure on US bank’s margins on deposit accounts.

Here’s a look at today’s closing numbers:

The S&P 500 fell 0.62% to 2,976.61
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.25% to 27,154.20
The Nasdaq Composite rose by 0.74% to 8,146.49

Chewy, the online pet food store, fell by 7.5% on Friday after the company posted its first quarterly report as a pubic company. Despite mostly positive results, Wall Street appears to wondering whether the company the company is too expensive, as the stock was up 48% through Thursday’s close.

Within the S&P 500, these were the largest gainers:

And the largest decliners:

Alliance Data System: (-4.08%)
Gilead Sciences (-3.23%)
Symantec (-3.17%)

The real estate and utilities sectors took the biggest losses in the S&P 500, dropping 1.69% and 1.45%, respectively. Energy and industrial indexes rose by 0.5%.

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