Trading Tips Blog

Insurance giant MetLife (MET) is down 22 percent over the past year, lagging the S&P 500. One trader sees the company continuing to slide even lower. That’s based on the September $42.50 puts. With 168 days until expiration, 3,004 contracts traded compared to a prior open interest of 109, for a 28-fold rise in volume on the trade. The buyer of the puts paid $1.18 to make the downside bet. With shares trading at about $56.50, the stock is still within ...
Read More About This

The market drop that started over a year ago has morphed into fears into specific sectors, such as banking. But other industries have likewise dropped to the point where investors can buy $1.00 in assets for less than $1.00. One measure of a company’s assets is its book value, or the value of its assets per share. Investors may be able to buy up bank shares for far less than book value right now – but that book may include non-performing ...
Read More About This

Timothy McGuire, a director at Dollar General (DG), recently bought 3,550 shares. The buy increased his holdings by 47 percent, and came to a total cost just over $717,000. This marks the first insider buy at the retail chain in over two years. Company insiders have been sellers of shares otherwise, nearly entirely after the exercise of stock options. That includes the company CEO and CFO, among others. Overall, Dollar General insiders own about 0.5 percent of shares. The retailer is down ...
Read More About This

Chinese tech giant Alibaba (BABA) soared on Tuesday, amid news that the company would break into six separate companies. One trader sees further upside ahead as those plans move forward. That’s based on the August $125 calls. With 140 days until expiration, 9,704 contracts traded compared to a prior open interest of 262, for a 37-fold rise in volume on the trade. The buyer of the calls paid $4.75 to get in. Shares recently traded for about $99, so the stock would ...
Read More About This

During a market pullback, investors tend to gravitate towards well-known companies with strong brands. Many of those companies, in turn, do what they do thanks to a strong network of suppliers. That can include anything from providing raw commodities to nearly-finished goods. Since these companies aren’t as well known, they tend to sell off during a market downturn, and then can benefit proportionately from the market rebound. So it’s no surprise that some analysts may be targeting them for big returns ...
Read More About This

Roland Burns, CFO at Comstock Resources (CRK), recently bought 20,000 shares. The buy increased his holdings by 2 percent, and came to a total cost just under $199,000. The buy comes about a week after the company’s VP of Financial Reporting bought 5,000 shares, paying $50,400. And Comstock’s VP of Operations bought 20,000 shares for $201,000. That’s on top of other insider buys going back to last August. There have been no insider sales in the past year. Overall, insiders own ...
Read More About This

Server and computer company International Business Machines (IBM) have dropped 4 percent in the past year, outperforming the overall stock market by about 9 points. One trader sees a further decline for shares in the weeks ahead. That’s based on the April 21 $116 puts. With 23 days until expiration, 3,949 contracts traded compared to a prior open interest of 199, for a 33-fold rise in volume on the trade. The buyer of the puts paid $0.56 to make the bearish ...
Read More About This

Investors are shying away from tech investments as interest rates rise. However, there are many ways to profit in tech in the years ahead, and finding reasonably-priced companies that can grow market share at today’s prices should fare well. While the market has flirted with artificial intelligence (AI) stocks so far this year, that space is far from proven. A more proven space is cloud storage, which continues to grow, even as tech firms slow down and announce layoffs. The cloud division ...
Read More About This