It is almost June 30 when Greece will have to come up with the Euros it needs to pay the debt collector. The amount owing, which Athens must pay by the end of the month, is 1.6 billion Euros. That is about $1.8 billion US. The financial aid Athens must collect to pay that steep amount will determine whether Greece will stay at least a bit longer amongst the prized group of 19 countries who use the Euro.
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Carrie Rosen
US Stocks have been slipping since Friday. That was one session after Nasdaq Composite came to a record close. The Nasdaq Composite fell to 5129, which was a four-point loss or 0.1 percent on Friday. It was just one session after an upswing in biotechnology shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2 percent, which was 31 points. That took it down to 18085. As for the S&P 500, it went down three points (0.1 percent) to be at 2118.
The record close was the first one since May. As for the tech-laden index, it rose by 1.3 percent, taking it to another record for this year. It was its fourth record of 2015. The Dow had advanced to 18115.84 or one percent while S&P 500 was up to 2121.24 or an addition of one percent.
The market is not getting a lot of drivers lately. Insiders are analyzing rates for this year, and whether they will increase, based on Greece’s debt negotiations and what info Federal Reserve officials release about the rates.
The Fed has signaled this week, as per usual, that it will take a slow approach to raising interest rates, which sits well with stock investors who have enjoyed six years of low rates. Financial experts predict that moderate level increases will be what the Feds do, as that will be what is in the best interests of the real US economy, as well as being good for financial markets.
For financial businesses in the S&P 500, the biggest decline was felt on Friday. It was down 0.5 percent. Those particular stocks tend to be most affected by the interest rate changes. The reason is that banks have the potential to make more money on loans in a high-interest-rate environment than at a lower rate. European stocks, meanwhile, were mixed that day, as there continue to be worries about the debt negotiations in Greece.
LaunchDarkly is not so much in the dark anymore, following its funding of $2.6 million. The startup LaunchDarkly is designed to help companies test new features in a soft launch format. They roll out features to a small user group to help the bigger company learn about the user experience; then the big firm can decide how to modify the product to better it before the more public launch.
Google released a new version of Drive for iOS this week that brings updates to its performance and gives it a Material Design makeover. This new Google Drive app is now fully downloadable. The update came on June 3 and brought with it many changes and improvements. For example, the new app syncs faster and loads images quicker than it did previously.
Joyus, a startup that is like an online shopping network, has received $24 million in funding, as per WSJ this week. If you have not yet heard of Joyus, it is a startup shooting short shopping videos and posting them online. Essentially, it’s the equivalent of a web-based Home Shopping Network. Each video features at least one product. Alongside the videos are advertisements so that video viewers can get the products they see on the screen at the same time.