World Cup Boosts Google Earnings, Geopolitical Tensions in Focus

Geopolitical tensions are in focus on Wall Street, FedEx (NYSE:FDX) is charged with illegally delivering dangerous drugs and the World Cup is kicking up profits for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).

Investors are closing out the trading week with global crises dominating the news. The downing of a passenger plane over Ukraine and escalation of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict rattled financial markets Thursday.

All three major exchanges ended yesterday's session lower. The Dow lost 161 points, and oil jumped half a percent to $103.70 a barrel.

Federal authorities are charging FedEx with assisting illegal pharmacies by knowingly delivering drugs to customers without prescriptions. The Department of Justice claims the shipping company conspired with two online pharmacies for 10 years. FedEx insists it did nothing wrong.

And Google says the World Cup helped its bottom-line. The company’s second quarter earnings rose 6% as World Cup fever drove more traffic to the company’s search engine and YouTube video site. Revenue totaled $15.96 billion, a 22% increase from a year ago.