Tag Archives: qqq

ETF Trading Desk Head Says: “Risk is On…Today..”

January 2, 2013 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

Courtesy of the ETF Professor at Benzinga.com

U.S. equities and other riskier assets are in rally mode in the first trading session of 2013 after lawmakers finally got around to agreeing on legislation that steered the U.S. away from the dreaded fiscal cliff. News that a deal was in the works ignited a rally on Monday while news that the cliff will be dodged has done the same today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 230 points at this writing while the Nasdaq Composite is sitting on a gain of 2.3 percent.

The tenor of Wednesday’s U.S. trading session is clearly risk on, so much so that before 10:30 AM Eastern time, the overall value of equities and ETFs traded was $73 billion, according to data provided by ETF execution firm WallachBeth. New York-based WallachBeth noted that only trading day in all of 2012 – December options expiration – saw equity value traded exceed $70 billion in the first hour of trading.

In a note to clients, WallachBeth Director of ETF Execution Services Chris Hempstead highlighted intense buying activity “on the ask” in several marquee broad market ETFs. Buying on the ask could be described as “panic buying” to some extent as traders that are willing to buy on the ask price being shown are indicating they are willing to pay up to acquire shares of a particular stock or ETF. The more times the ask price is hit, the more intense a rally becomes.

Read the full story at Benzinga.com

ETF News

June ETF Short Report: ‘Q’s’ Shorts Drop 42%

July 13, 2012 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

Courtesy of Olly Ludwig

Short-sellers last month significantly cut their bets against an array of the broadest U.S. stock indexes, which looks quite sensible in the rearview mirror considering both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrials average rallied by nearly 4 percent in June.

While financial markets are again on tenterhooks over the dismal fiscal situation in Europe—and Spain’s in particular—last month marked something of a respite from the three-year-old eurozone debt crisis, as short interest on non-U.S. stocks fell as well.

Most conspicuously, the number of shares short on the PowerShares QQQ Trust (NasdaqGM: QQQ), the Nasdaq 100 ETF, dropped 42.6 percent in June, compared with a nearly 9 percent rise in the prior month. The decline left short interest on the “Q’s” at 10 percent of the ETF’s outstanding long float, compared with more than 18 percent at the end of May, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse.

Shorts on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) meanwhile fell by almost 23 percent in June, compared to a 13 percent jump in May. Also, short interest on the iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (NYSEArca: IWM) fell by more than 7 percent last month, after holding about steady in the prior month.

Dark Clouds Ahead? Continue reading →

ETF News, People Profiles, Strike Price

ETFs with Largest Exposure to AAPL: Should You Hedge?

March 16, 2012 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

Now that we’ve all forgotten the name of that former derivatives trader from Goldman who enjoyed his 15 minutes of “de-fame”, we can now all re-focus on the brand that’s causing people to line up once again for their latest product offering: Apple Inc.

According to ETF Research Center, 91 ETFs have AAPL in their baskets. The heavy-weighters with more than 10% of assets holding this “iMonster” include IYW (19%), FTQ (17.7%), XLK (17%), QQQ (17%), VGT (16.5%), IXN (15%), JKE (14.8%), ROI (11.5%), ONEQ (10.9%) and IGM (10.2%).

If you don’t own Apple shares, you know someone who does, and if you or someone in your household doesn’t own an Apple device, you might be living in China, where a mere 40 million iPads were sold in 2011, which represented a sliver (11%) of the 350 million PCs, desktops and laptops sold there last year.

Because a household member owns both AAPL stock (purchased at $380 only 4 months ago) and several Apple devices–this blogger doesn’t want to be biased insofar as any buy/sell recommendations (but, if you’re a holder, I’d absolutely recommend layering your positions with a smart option strategy courtesy of a smart option trader.) Instead, we invite you to read a very good, and very objective piece that appeared in the WSJ today, and written by old-friend and former hedge fund trader Andy Kessler.

You’ll want to click “more” for the full article. For those with short attention spans, Kessler concluded with: “One thing I’ve learned from my bruising time on Wall Street is to never get in the way of a freight train. Stocks with momentum keep momentum as mutual funds and index funds load up. They never seem expensive—until at some point the fundamentals subtly shift for the worse. Momentum works in both directions. Pull up the charts for General Motors, Xerox or Kodak on your iPhone.” Continue reading →