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Volatility’s Historic Rise and Fall: Market Trends This Week
by David Russell | Aug 22, 2024
Downloads are available here. TradeStation’s ideas on TradingView are available here. Register here for our next “State of the Market,” on Monday, 8/26. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 holds above 8/1 high, is now +1.8% in August Advance/Decline Line...
Is a Reversal Coming? Rate of Change Can Help Spot Turns in the Stock Market
by David Russell | Sep 20, 2022
Not all price moves are created equal. Today we'll explore a common tool for judging the strength of a rally or decline: the rate of change indicator. Rate of change shows the percentage change over a certain number of trailing bars. (TradeStation's platforms use a...
Stocks Remain Under Pressure Before a Major Federal Reserve Meeting
by David Russell | Sep 19, 2022
Stocks remain under pressure as investors brace for another interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 slid 4.8 percent between Friday, September 9, and Friday, September 16. It was the fourth negative week in the last five, and the biggest drop since...
Technical Analysis: Tight Consolidation in Another Clean Energy Stock
by David Russell | Sep 14, 2022
Clean-energy stocks have been one of the strongest parts of the market lately, and today’s chart focuses on a new battery-tech name: Stem. The first pattern is the quick uptrend in late summer, fueled by the Inflation Reduction Act and strong quarterly results on...
Inflation Jumps Before the Fed: Are There Any Signs of Improvement?
by David Russell | Sep 14, 2022
Inflation jumped again in August, but there could be signs of price increases slowing. The Consumer Price Index rose 8.3 percent last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was 0.2 percentage point higher than expected. The surprise made investors...
Options Alert: Call Volume Swells in Apple as IPhone 14 Hits the Market
by David Russell | Sep 13, 2022
The options activity may be turning bullish in Apple as the smart-phone giant rolls out the iPhone 14. Some 1.1 million call contracts traded in AAPL yesterday. That was the most since the earnings came out in late July, according to TradeStation data. Our analytics...
Chart of the Day: Is It Time to Go Back to the Well in Occidental?
by David Russell | Sep 12, 2022
Occidental Petroleum is the biggest gainer in the S&P 500 this year, but was the biggest decliner last week. Is the dip an opportunity for the bulls? The first pattern on today's chart is the surge to a new 52-week high in late August. It is one of only 12 S&P...
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Technology & Communication
Chart of the Day: Is This Chip Stock Rolling Over?
by David Russell | Aug 29, 2022
Advanced Micro Devices has bounced sharply from its early-July lows, but some patterns could be pointing lower for the chip stock. The first pattern on today’s chart is the descending parallel channel that’s been in effect most of the year. AMD’s latest highs...
E-Commerce and the Cloud Have Taken Over the World: Earnings Season Recap
by David Russell | May 21, 2020
Earnings season is pretty much finished, and the main story wasn't Covid-19. Instead, it was the complete dominance of e-commerce and cloud computing. Megacap Internet companies like Amazon.com (AMZN), Facebook (FB) and Alphabet (GOOGL) climbed on strong results. They...
Tech Keeps Beating Estimates as Lockdown Drives Growth: Earnings This Week
by David Russell | May 14, 2020
Technology stocks continue to lead a small group of companies doing well amid the coronavirus lockdown. Cisco Systems (CSCO), Square (SQ), Logitech (LOGI) and Datadog (DDOG) all reported strong quarterly results over the last week. Several are direct beneficiaries of...
Worried About a Pullback? Here Are Three Go-To Options Strategies
by David Russell | May 13, 2020
Sentiment has turned more negative this week as investors worry the economy will keep struggling with coronavirus. Let's consider some ways to protect your investments with options. Managing Risk with Collars The first strategy is known as a collar. Say you purchased...
Coronavirus Wasn’t the Worst Thing for Quarterly Results: Earnings This Week
by David Russell | May 7, 2020
Coronavirus was a big theme in quarterly results over the last week, but it wasn't all bad. Companies like Shopify (SHOP), Activision Blizzard (ATVI) and Peloton Interactive (PTON) ripped higher as social distancing drove growth in their online businesses. Match...