Standard & Poors

Traders shrugged off the ADP private sector unemployment report, which announced a dramatic 697,000 jobs lost in the month of February alone. Traditionally, the ADP report is popular with traders as it gives indication to the strength of the NonFarm Payroll report issued by the US government on the first Friday of each month. Some [...]

As the S&P 500 index plummeted to 1996 lows, traders pushed option volume 60% higher. On any normal day for the exchange, 1.31 million contracts trade hands. Today, the market saw more than two million contracts traded, with puts outpacing calls by a 1.5:1 margin, as reported by Reuters. Frederick Ruffy from WhatsTrading.com summed up [...]

As the S&P 500 index plummeted to 1996 lows, traders pushed option volume 60% higher. On any normal day for the exchange, 1.31 million contracts trade hands. Today, the market saw more than two million contracts traded, with puts outpacing calls by a 1.5:1 margin, as reported by Reuters. Frederick Ruffy from WhatsTrading.com summed up [...]

Short positions on the S&P500 index are growing as investors are hedging plays and looking for more downside opportunities, as reported by Reuters. With open interest of 16,387 contracts on April $75 puts, nearly 30,000 contracts traded hands, showing strong investor interest in short positions. An increase in hedging interest is indicative of investors exhibiting [...]

Traders in Singapore can now join the American bears in making profitable honey from the falling S&P. Deutsche Bank is launching a new ETF in Singapore designed to inversely track the returns of the US S&P 500 index. Inverse ETFs are popular among small traders who do not have access to margin accounts or the [...]

While some investors have recently divorced the market, active traders are still in love with ETFs. Charles Schwab released new market research data that shows ETFs are all the rage among active traders. The study included 700 active traders, who provided their opinions on various investment instruments and the future movements of the market. Twenty-four [...]

In less than six months, the US indices have fallen through more than 11 years of value, virtually erasing the retirement savings of many buy-and-hold investors. The US markets incurred a huge selloff today, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P500 indices falling to retest 1997 lows, according to Bloomberg. The SPDR [...]

Investor fear remains extremely evident with the market’s initial reaction to an approved major stimulus package. The broad indexes were all testing significant lows as investors showed little confidence in the government’s ability to revive the economy short-term. The Associated Press points out that on the day a $787 billion stimulus was signed into law, [...]

The U.S. economy has been in a recession for over a year, yet American retail sales somehow jumped in the first month of 2009. The sales increase in January was the largest statistical one-month jump since November 2007, according to Reuters. The Commerce Department reported that retail sales climbed 1% in January, which was the [...]

In the world of sports, defense typically wins championships. A defensive investment strategy in times of economic weakness tends to be the correct approach as well. The consumer staples industry is considered to be defensive-minded, as the companies within this segment seem to hold strong in the face of market turmoil. Michael Maiello and David [...]