Market Insights
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Wider Fears Amid Some Good Results: Earnings This Week
A handful of big companies announced strong results in the last week, but wider problems are tarnishing the story. Feeble semiconductor demand, doubts about the industrial sector and lackluster guidance emerged as recurring themes as we progress through the busiest...
Perfect Storm Handing Nasdaq its Worst Month Since 2008
A perfect storm of negatives is handing the Nasdaq-100 its worst month since the financial crisis. The technology-heavy index lost 11 percent of its value between the end of September and yesterday's close. Depending on where this October ends, it'll compare with...
Chips and China Tech Are Killing the Nasdaq
The Nasdaq-100 is getting hammered again this morning, with two groups accounting for most of the pain. As this RadarScreen® shows, nine of the 10 worst-performing companies in the index today are either semiconductor-related names or Chinese Internet stocks. Biotech...
Some Key Funds May Be on the Precipice
Volatility's on the rise this month, and three popular ETFs are trying to hang on. The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH), S&P SPDR Financial ETF (XLF) and S&P SPDR Energy ETF (XLE) had all slammed down to apparent support levels earlier in the year. At...
Clients Rush Back to ETFs as Volatility Pops
Clients are rushing back to exchange-traded funds this month as volatility mounts. Five of the 10 most heavily traded symbols with TradeStation in October are ETFs. That marks a sharp swing from September, when calm market conditions pushed attention toward...
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...