Trader Talk

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE I have several friends in the restaurant business. For the past few weeks, I’ve heard the same story every weekend: business is fabulous, and we can’t get enough help. This week, several of those restaurant people asked me what was going on with these Covid

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Source: NYSE Earnings season begins with two major tailwinds:  sky high prices and sky-high expectations.  On paper, second quarter earnings looks like the mother of all earnings reports, with estimates having risen steadily for the past six months, from expected 45% growth in January to

In this article KWEB Chinese and U.S. flags outside the building of an American company in Beijing, China January 21, 2021. Tingshu Wang | Reuterss A new Securities and Exchange Commission rule that will require foreign companies to submit documentation about government affiliations and government influence is causing headaches for China investors. It’s one of

It was a bad day for Cathie Wood.  And it was a very strange trading day.  For weeks, stocks have been held hostage to Treasury yields, particularly the 10-year.  As yields moved up, stocks, particularly high-multiple megacap stocks, moved down.  If yields dropped, tech rallied. That relationship has broken down. Yields have been down three

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE It’s the anniversary of the big drop: What’s changed?  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on the state of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday. It’s the one-year anniversary

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE Are you confused about what is going on in the markets? Traders sure are. “We all got comfortable thinking Covid was done or manageable, and it may turn out to still be a wild card,” Peter Tchir from Academy Securities told me. ”Nobody wants another

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 16, 2020 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images March 16, 2020 was the day when Covid got very real for market investors.  It was the week everyone realized that we would be in for a prolonged shutdown. When

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE Do you have Fear of Missing Out on all this wild trading going on this year? Would you buy a FOMO fund if someone offered it to you? Some investors are betting you will. Investing in the stock market these days is like

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE Stock traders don’t normally talk about bond auctions, but all this week the 10-year Treasury auction that will happen on Wednesday has been the main subject of conversation. “It’s been a long time since stock traders have cared about bond auctions,” Matt Maley

A Model X is on display at a Tesla showroom on February 13, 2021 in Beijing, China. VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images What’s behind the drop in tech stocks? A model Wall Street uses to value stocks is flashing caution. Tech stocks are in a correction. The Nasdaq 100, the largest 100

The logos of Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok displayed on a computer screen. Denis Charlet | AFP via Getty Images Is it time for an ETF that measures hype? Measuring the buzz around stocks mentioned in social media is all the rage.  Now there’s an exchange-traded fund for that. The Van Eck Vectors

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stands in the Financial District in Manhattan on January 28, 2021 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images Will March be the death of the “TINA” trade? February started with the reflation trade, and ended with a bond market rout that scrambled stock valuations and caused some

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on “The Quarterly CARES Act Report to Congress” on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 1, 2020. Susan Walsh | Pool | Reuters Stock investors are trying desperately to interpret what a rise in bond yields means for the stock market. Since February 10th,

Cathy Wood Crystal Mercedes | CNBC Some called it the “Cathie Wood sell-off.”   At the open Tuesday, the top names owned by Ark Investment Management were the biggest decliners in the market.  Shares of Palantir, Tesla, Roku, Square, Paypal, Teladoc, Baidu, Zillow, Shopify and Spotify were all down big, in many cases by double-digits.  All

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Source: The New York Stock Exchange With attention focused on Robinhood and retail traders at Thursday’s Congressional hearings, trading volumes are very much in focus, as is the practice of “payment for order flow.” Talk about a comeback story. A year ago, retail traders were

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Source: The New York Stock Exchange Stocks are hitting new highs on the back of a magical phrase being sprinkled like pixie dust among the conference calls this earnings season: “operating leverage.” “The market is set to see a substantial acceleration in earnings growth on

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE Blowout earnings are forcing analysts to up estimates for 2021. With a little more than half of companies reporting, earnings are proving to be a pleasant surprise for the trading community. The GameStop/Robinhood fiasco is turning out to be a minor blip in

Wall Street is concerned about the Yellen regulator super-summit, and with good reason, market watchers say. “The Street should be worried,” Jamie Selway, former head of electronic brokerage at ITG and now an investment advisor, told me. “There’s clearly questions about gamification, and whether a lot of these approaches are suitable and inducing unnecessary trading

Peak GameStop?  GameStop’s volume and volatility has been much lower this week than in the prior six days. This is also true of other heavily shorted names like Bed Bath and Beyond, Express and AMC.    What’s going on?  Chris Murphy, co-head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna Financial Group, ticked off the signs that the endgame

The Reddit forum WallStreetBets logo on a smartphone arranged in Sydney, Australia, on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images What’s next for the Reddit crowd? Wall Street seems unsure.  The “blow-out-the-short-sellers game” is showing signs of exhaustion, but the ramifications are only just being felt. What traders can’t agree on is