Market Insights
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SPX vs SPY: Knowing your Options on the S&P 500
The S&P 500 is the world's most heavily traded stock index and there are several ways for options traders to take positions. Today we'll compare different methods like using index options or contracts on the popular SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) fund. It can be useful to...
The Nasdaq-100 Rebounds After a Brutal January: What Does the Chart Say?
The Nasdaq-100 has rebounded following a sharp drop. It's a good time to consider where things stand with the tech-heavy index. First, Wednesday's close represented almost exactly a 50 percent retracement of the decline from December 28 through January 24. Second,...
Energy Stocks Aren’t The Only Companies Riding the Inflationary Trend Higher
Inflation is a key theme for investors this year. Aside from lifting energy stocks, it's also boosting a lesser known corner of the market: agriculture. Companies like Deere (DE), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Mosaic (MOS) have outperformed the market by a wide...
Options Alert: Giant Neutral Strategy Targets Intel Following Sharp Drop
Intel's been dropping for nine months, but one big options trader is looking for the semiconductor giant to stabilize. This large transaction involving short calls and short puts occurred yesterday as INTC tried to hold its lowest level in over a year: 30,000 March 50...
Stocks Cling to Support as the Fed’s Hawks Go to Work. Growth Heads for Worst Month in 20 Years.
Stocks clung to support last week as investors brace for a series of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 spent most of the period in negative territory, but rallied sharply in the final 90 minutes on Friday, January 28. That resulted in a 0.8 percent...
Don’t Fight the Fed? Powell’s New Hawkishness Is Making Investors Reprice the Stock Market
Stocks are tumbling as the Federal Reserve's tighter monetary policy forces investors to rethink the entire stock market. The S&P 500 is down 9.2 percent in January, its worst month since coronavirus shuttered the economy in March 2020. High-multiple growth stocks...
Energy Stocks Are Crushing the Market in 2022 and Nothing Else Is Even Close
Oil and gas stocks are crushing the market this year, and no other sector even comes close. The SDPR Energy Fund (XLE) has advanced 17.7 percent since the end of December. It's the only major sector fund in the green, flying past the S&P 500's 8.6 percent decline....
Technology & Communication
A Key Semiconductor Stock Just Gave Tech Investors a Boost of Confidence
Chip stocks are an important part of the market because of their wide use across the economy. Yesterday, a key player gave investors a big shot of confidence in the group. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) gained almost 3 percent after announcing quarterly results. As its...
Cloud IPO Available to TradeStation Clients
A cloud-computing IPO could be coming your way, if you act fast. Software company SolarWinds (SWI) is going public this week, and we've just learned it will be available on our partner ClickIPO. As many clients know, ClickIPO provides direct access to initial public...
Long-Term Bulls Are Active Today: Options Recap
Cell phones and natural gas. Those are some big trades in the options market today. Let's start with Sprint (S), which saw the purchase of 20,000 May 7 calls for $0.50 and the sale of 40,000 May 8 calls for $0.21. It's a little complicated, so here's a breakdown of...
History May Favor Bulls This Quarter, Despite Volatility
Stocks are coming off their worst week since March, but history may favor the bulls. After all, we're in the fourth quarter -- a time of the year with a strong bias to the upside. Consider some of these points we crunched from TradeStation's wealth of chart data: The...
Basics of Hedging, Part 3: Buying Vs. Selling Options
We recently outlined protective puts and covered calls as common hedging techniques. This brings us to the important question of selling options versus buying options. To understand the these two basic kinds of transactions, traders need to recognize the difference...