U.S. Dollar Makes New High As Money Flows Out Of Commodities

The U.S. dollar shot higher Tuesday as stocks and commodities continued their trek lower.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 28.3 points, or 0.17 percent, to close at 17,043.
• The S&P 500 dropped 5.5 points, or 0.28 percent, to close at 1,972.
• The Nasdaq gave up 12.5 points, or 0.28 percent, to close at 4,493.

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Carl Icahn recorded another activist success on Tuesday. Ebay EBAY announced it will spin off PayPal into its own publicly traded entity. This sent shares of eBay 7.5 percent higher for the session.

The Consumer Board’s consumer confidence reading was lower than analysts expected at 86. This compares to the 92 estimate and 93.4 previous reading.

Stock Movers

Move MOVE shares shot up 37.1 percent to $20.96 after the company agreed to be acquired by News Corp NWSA for $21 per share, or $950 million.

Shares of Teekay TK got a boost, shooting up 13.7 percent to $66.36 after the company adopted a new dividend policy and announced its plans to increase dividend by 75-80 percent.

Shares of TravelCenters of America LLC TA were down 15 percent to $9.88 after the company reported Q2 earnings of $0.36 per share on revenue of $2.08 billion.

Ford Motor Co F was down, falling 2.1 percent to $14.79. Ford cut its 2014 pre-tax profit forecast to $6 billion, versus its prior outlook of $7 billion to $8 billion. The company said it will take a 2014 pre-tax loss of $1.2 billion in Europe and will lose another $250 million in the region during 2015. Ford also expected a pre-tax 2014 loss of $1 billion in South America. Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache lowered the price target on Ford from $20.00 to $18.00.

Global Markets

Asian markets were mixed Tuesday as uncertainty surrounding Hong Kong continues. The Shanghai index rose 0.26 percent, but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell an additional 1.28 percent. Japan’s Nikkei gave up 0.84 percent.

European stocks trended mostly higher during the day. The Euro Stoxx index, which tracks 50 blue chips, added 1.22 percent, London’s FTSE dropped 0.36 percent and France’s CAC rose 1.33 percent.

Commodities

Crude oil gave up all of Monday’s gains with an astonishing 2.75 percent sell off. This is one of the weakest sessions for crude futures of the year. Contracts last exchanged hands at $91.55.

Gold was similarly weak, making a new 10 month low as contracts dropped another 0.6 percent Tuesday. Futures were last trading at $1,208.58.

Currencies

The U.S. dollar continued higher as investors pulled their money out of stocks and commodities. The greenback made a new four-year high according to the U.S. dollar index, at 86.22.