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Reuters
New York
New US sanctions drove down Russia's ruble, while worries that Turkey was sliding into a full-blown economic crisis battered the lira on Thursday, while global equity markets largely shrugged off these events to edge higher.
The Russian ruble slid 1 percent after Washington said it would impose fresh sanctions because it had determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain, which the Kremlin denies.
The ruble slid to its lowest since late 2016, hitting 66.7099 rubles to the dollar and leaving it, after a second day of declines, more than 4 percent weaker than it had been late Tuesday.
Turkey's lira touched a record low against the dollar, weakening 4 percent in 24 hours after meetings in Washington looked to have made little progress in mending a row over Ankara's jailing of an American pastor.
"Politics continues to wreak short-term havoc in global FX markets," said Viraj Patel, a currency strategist at Dutch bank ING."We're questioning whether any currency is truly safe."
MSCI's all-country world stock index, rose 0.02 percent.
European shares earlier in the session were lower but later pared losses. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading regional shares closed up 0.01 percent, while the blue-chip EURO STOXX 50 fell 0.03 percent.
On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 index rose modestly and remained less than half a percentage point from breaching an all-time high.
With the second-quarter US earnings season mostly over, investors are turning their attention from solid economic growth and corporate profits to other risks, said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston.
The latter half of August into September is notoriously volatile and associated with some potential hiccups in the market, he said.
"It wouldn't surprise me to see the market struggle to move much higher from here, even if we do breach the all-time highs, until we get around to the next earnings seasons," Arone said.
The S&P and the Nasdaq inched towards a record on the back of high-flying technology trio of Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
The tech-heavy index was up 0.33 percent at 7,914.22, a quarter of a percent away from hitting an all-time high.
The technology sector has been at the center of a sharp recovery in US stocks since a market rout in February. The S&P is also less than half a percent shy of the record it hit in late January.
Shares of Apple rose 1 percent, while those of Amazon were up 0.8 percent and Microsoft 0.4 percent.
"There is low volatility in the markets as the S&P and Nasdaq are just below all-time record highs, and it seems like markets are complacent right now," said Tom White, chief market strategist at TradeWise Advisors, in Chicago, Illinois.
"It's a risk-on trade. Investors are more comfortable with FAANG stocks and technology as far as valuations go, and these stocks have higher margins."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the only laggard among the three major indexes. It was down 29.07 points, or 0.11 percent, at 25,554.68 points.
The S&P 500 was up 0.59 points, or 0.02 percent, at 2,858.29.
Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with the materials sector leading the gains as aluminum prices rose.
