Saturday, April 20, 2024
Trying to understand the stock market in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge for even the most seasoned of traders. It’s not like the investing world has much to compare to. Sure, the Spanish Flu seems roughly like a similar situation—but that was more than 100 years ago. The markets are far larger […]
Looking at options block trades can be a useful way to see what big investors and funds are doing in the options market. Recently, a large trader bought 2 million shares of Bank of America (BAC) while selling 20,000 January calls at the same time. This is likely a covered call trade and suggests that […]
Over the last two decades, the investment landscape has been dramatically altered by two trends. The first is the shift from single stock and mutual fund investing into exchange-traded products (primarily ETFs). The second is the emergence of volatility as an asset class. First off, ETFs opened the door for the average investor to trade […]
Precious metals are generally used as defensive assets in times of uncertainty. This has certainly been true of gold in recent weeks. Now, it looks like silver may finally be joining the party. Silver prices jumped last week, with the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) moving up 5% in one day. With $7 billion in assets, […]
Gambling on sports has always been controversial in the U.S. What once was the sole provenance of casinos (at least in terms of legal sports betting) has become far more widespread in recent years. Many states are expected to adopt online legal sports betting in time, and some have already done so. Even before the […]
One of the big trends in stocks is buying companies that are likely to thrive in a work-from-home environment. With many offices closed and employees working remotely, companies like Slack (WORK) stand to gain a lot of business. Slack allows coworkers to communicate with each other individually or in groups, along with the ability to […]
The stock market’s daily movement has begun to normalize, at least compared to March. The major stock indexes are moving about 2% per day on average, significantly higher than what we’ve become used to. Keep in mind: it’s far more typical to see daily moves of 1% or less. Of course, a market crash will […]
Amazon (AMZN) reported earnings this past week and beat on revenues but missed on the bottom line. Revenues were higher than expected with so many people ordering products online, but the company had higher costs due to changes made necessary by the pandemic. While AMZN has an uncertain outlook for the remainder of the year […]
The financial world had quite a shock last week when crude oil prices dropped into negative territory for the first time. While the price of the front-month oil futures contract is no longer negative, it’s still trading at just over $13 per barrel. With the exception of last week, the price hasn’t been that low […]
One of the primary beneficiaries to the stay-at-home revolution brought on by COVID-19 is the video communication industry. In particular, Zoom Video Communication (ZM) has been on a tear in recent weeks as more and more people use the product for meetings, discussions, and chats. ZM was trading at new highs when Facebook (FB) announced […]
