STOCKS HIT ALL-TIME HIGHS: Here's what you need to know

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high for a seventh straight session on Wednesday, as the S&P 500 also clinched a new closing record.

Additionally, the Dow achieved a rare thing: it ended higher for a ninth day - something that had only happened seven times since 1980.

Here's the scoreboard:

• Dow: 18,604.21, +45.20, (0.24%)
• S&P 500: 2,173.08, +9.30, (0.43%)
• Nasdaq: 5,089.78, +53.41, (1.06%)

1. HSBC's Global Head of foreign exchange cash trading Mark Johnson was arrested at JFK International Airport in New York late on Tuesday. He has been charged with conspiring to defraud a client of the bank, and was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Wednesday. He was charged, along with former colleague Stuart Scott, with "front-running" a client order. Scott had been head of foreign-exchange cash trading for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Front-running is where market makers try to profit by trading on client information before the client's trade is executed. The Department of Justice alleges that Johnson and Scott in November and December 2011 misused information about a client transaction to make trades in HSBC's proprietary accounts. HSBC allegedly generated profits of $8 million from the FX transactions. The bank declined to comment.
2. Morgan Stanley closed out big-bank earnings with a beat on profits and revenues. It reported Q2 earnings per share of $0.75 ($0.60 expected) on revenue of $8.91 billion ($8.31 billion forecast.) "Our results this quarter reflect solid performance in an improved but still fragile environment," CEO James Gorman said in the earnings statement. Sales and trading revenues fell 7% year-on-year to $3.26 billion, better than expected. And, fixed income trading revenue fell 6% year-on-year to $1.30 billion, also higher than forecast.
3. Halliburton believes the North American oil market has "turned." "We expect to see a modest uptick in rig count during the second half of the year," CEO Dave Lesar said in the company's second-quarter earnings statement. Around mid-May, the plunge in the US oil rig count stabilized as rising oil prices encouraged some producers to increase activity. Halliburton posted an adjusted loss per share from continuing operations of $0.14, better than analysts' median estimate for a loss of $0.19, according to Bloomberg. Revenue totaled $3.84 billion (versus $3.76 billion expected), a 35% year-over-year decline.
4. The Turkish lira fell to a record low after S&P downgraded Turkey's credit rating to BB from BB-plus and changed the country's outlook to negative. "Following the attempted coup in the Republic of Turkey on July 15, we believe the polarization of Turkey's political landscape has further eroded its institutional checks and balances," S&P noted. The lira collapsed to a low of 3.0945 per dollar - a new all-time low - around 12:56 p.m. ET. "We expect a period of heightened unpredictability that could constrain capital inflows into Turkey's externally leveraged economy," S&P added.

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