NEW YORK (CNNMoney) For a summer Friday, markets are feeling a bit feisty. From Iraq to Priceline, there's much for investors to weigh. Here are the 5 big themes to follow:
1. Don't get spooked by Friday the 13th: Wall Street isn't too superstitious when it comes to Friday the 13th. At least in June. Dating back to 1928, stocks have risen on 10 of the last 12 occasions when Friday the 13th occurred during the month of June, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
To that end, the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq were all up over 0.25% by mid-morning. Stocks started out the week grinding to new highs, but fell Wednesday and Thursday.
2. Priceline names a price and others follow: Priceline (PCLN, Tech30) on Friday said it was buying restaurant reservations site OpenTable (OPEN) for $2.6 billion. Shares of OpenTable skyrocketed almost 50%, trading over the $103 a share sale price, while Priceline fell. Other internet stocks catering to local businesses soared on the news as well, including Yelp (YELP), Groupon (GRPN), and Grubhub (GRUB).
Besides those companies, Intel (INTC, Tech30)powered forward by almost 7% after the company announced a more positive outlook for the second quarter. Business PC purchases are picking up, according to Intel. Rival Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Tech30) also got a nice boost.
Investors were also keeping an eye on DreamWorks (DWA), which releases the second installment of its widely popular "How to Train Your Dragon" saga over the weekend. The independent media company is hoping a good box office showing for that film will make up for the less-than-stellar performance of its "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" earlier this year. DreamWorks shares have gotten a lift in the past month, but are still down over 20% this year.
3. Oil, gold, producer prices on the move: Concerns about increasing instability in Iraq continued to rattle the oil markets and raise a red flag in the stock market. Crude oil prices are trading at nine-month highs, pushing higher to almost $107 per barrel. Large areas of the country have been overrun by militants, raising fears that oil production and exports could be hit.
!Oil prices were last this high in September 2013. On Thursday, oil jumped by more than 2%.
Gold prices rallied by over $10 Thursday but were flat Friday at $1,274 per ounce. Gold tends to rise in turbulent times as investors seek safe havens.
And a key measure of inflation, the Producer Price Index, fell unexpectedly into negative territory Friday, raising concerns about slower growth in the U.S.
4. Rate hike across the pond?: Investors have remained confident that central banks will keep rates low for some time, but that conviction is now being called into question. On Thursday, the head of the Bank of England said that U.K. interest rates could rise sooner than markets expect. That could mean a rate rise as early as the end of 2014. The pound climbed against the dollar to its highest level in years on the announcement.
Steven Englander, managing director at CitiFX, said the warning would turn the spotlight back on policymakers at the U.S. Federal Reserve.
"Investors [will] look to next week's Federal Open Market Committee [meeting] as a guide to whether the Fed sees itself beginning the road to normalizing policy or engaged in an ongoing effort to avoid normalization for as long as possible," he said.
In Asia, the Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy unchanged.
5. More International action: European markets were mostly declining in afternoon trading, while Asian markets ended with mixed results. India's market dropped this week, although it is still a top performer for the year -- up over 19%.
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Bravil's Bovespa Index was on a tear all week -- up nearly 4% as of yesterday as the World Cup kicked off, but the index is down slightly Friday as protests continue to rock the country.
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