Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Nvidia (NVDA), the graphics card giant, was up 12% one day last week. The company announced it would be creating a platform for metaverse technology, and the stock took off. The metaverse is the latest buzzword in the investment space and refers to collaboration in the virtual world. An interesting, out-of-the-box trade idea is to […]
Unusual options volume can help you find trading opportunities, but also trades to avoid. Sometimes, instead of looking for the most action, the best course is to look at relative action. For instance, if a stock has options that are trading 100x the normal amount, it may be worth looking into. In the case of […]
One thing that I’ve learned in the many years that I’ve traded options is that most investors hate hedging. It’s not the idea of hedging (i.e., protecting a portfolio’s downside) that’s the issue. It’s the cost. Hedging can be expensive over time. Investors generally are not fans of things that are meant to lose money […]
Sometimes, a useful method for finding good trades to make is looking at what other people are doing. For instance, we can easily search for large covered call trades in order to get trade ideas. One interesting covered call trade in iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) will boost the return from holding the ETF […]
One of the more intriguing aspects of 2021 has been the relatively high levels of expected volatility in the equities markets. The VIX, a widely-used barometer of broad market volatility, has been consistently higher throughout the year compared to its long-term median. Despite the high levels of anticipated volatility, the market hasn’t yet seen that […]
Looking at block trades and unusual options volume can be very enlightening. For instance, a big trade in US Global Jets ETF (JETS) can possibly give us clues towards what to expect for the airline industry in November. By looking closely at what trades hit the tape, you can often determine if a strategist is bullish or […]
Options order flow, particular large or unusual block trades, can potentially help traders predict where a big market move may occur. Large traders will often use options on ETFs in order to take a directional position on a major asset class or industry. For example, using the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF […]
We recently saw a significant amount of action in Global X Uranium ETF (URA). Uranium has become a popular commodity to trade this year as energy prices in fossil fuels have soared. Uranium is often considered a potential stopgap between fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. URA is up nearly 90% this year and at least […]
One of the most popular ETFs to trade is the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM). The widely-used ETF tracks small cap stocks and is one of the most heavily traded index ETFs in the world. Recently, a trader made a large covered call trade on IWM using at-the-money options. The strategy, with options expiring next […]
Last week, we saw a substantial amount of options activity in the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Bond ETF (HYG). HYG is a very popular ETF used for tracking junk bonds (aka high yield bonds). The ETF normally has about 220,000 options contacts that trade per day on average, but on a busy day last […]
