Market Insights
Opportunity knocks for those with trading in their DNA.
Curiosity creates opportunity. Insights create strategy. Born traders create their destiny.
Elections and Global Risk: Futures Might Help at Moments Like This
Financial markets are entering a time of potential turmoil, with uncertain timing of news events and price moves. Traders may react by turning to futures. Futures are securities that track an underlying index or market virtually around the clock. Traders can take...
Strategies for Managing Risk With Options
Options can be risky because they're complex and typically expire worthless. However they can also help investors limit risk when used correctly. This post will consider four strategies that can reduce losses and enhance gains for ordinary investors. Bullish Call...
Understanding and Managing Sector Risk in Your Portfolio
Investors face many potential risks in the stock market. Today we'll focus on the important issue of sector risk. Sectors are broad categories of companies like technology, health care and financials. Because their businesses are often similar, companies in the same...
What Is Event Risk? Why Does It Matter? How Can it Be Managed?
Investors face several kinds of risk in the stock market. Today we'll consider one of the most common: event risk. While some events are unexpected, many are known. Stocks often move around certain occurrences, like earnings reports, Federal Reserve meetings or...
Stop Losses and Trade Sizes Can Help Manage Risk
Many beginners think trading is simply a question of buying the right stocks at the right time. But risk management is equally important because it may allow them to survive making bad picks. This article focuses on two key parts of risk management: stop losses and...
Bearish Option Strategy: Put Spread
Traders buy a put option near the money and sell another at a lower strike. This strategy can leverage a price drop with limited capital at risk. Learn more
Bullish Option Strategy: Call Spread
Traders buy a call option near the money and sell another at a higher strike. This strategy can leverage a price increase with limited capital at risk. Learn more
Technology & Communication
Chart of the Day: Palantir Stabilizes Above Old Highs
Palantir Technologies has advanced as investors embrace AI and non-government customers embrace its products. Is its current pullback offering an opportunity? The first pattern on today’s chart is the pair of rallies after the last two quarterly reports. Those may...
Options Alert: Call Buyers Target Breakout in Up-and-Coming Cloud Stock
Datadog, an 11-year old cloud-computing firm, broke out to new highs last month. Today, options traders looked for the rally to continue. More than 20,000 call options changed hands at the 140 strike, plus another 5,000 at the 142 strike. Four contracts accounted for...
IPOs, iPhones and Fed Tapering: Stocks Enter the Home Stretch for 2021
The U.S. economy took a hit last month, but investors may find new opportunities as they come back from the summer. A wave of initial public offerings (IPOs), changes in Federal Reserve policy and technology news could prove catalysts in coming weeks. We'll consider...
E-Commerce Giant Struggles After Bearish Price Gap: Chart of the Day
Amazon.com rallied into its last earnings report, and crashed on a very weak outlook. Now traders may need to mind the price gap that resulted. So far, AMZN hasn't even tried to fill that chasm, which creates the risk that it will become a longer-lasting scar on the...
Investors Move Back to Cyclicals, Looking for a Hotter Economy Into Yearend
Another rotation toward value stocks could be underway as investors look for a stronger economy into yearend. Financials, industrials and materials have gained momentum in the last week. (The key tracking ETFs for all three have broken above their 50-day moving...