Stocks and Trading Thread - Channeling your inner Mono

[MadImmortalMan]

If you want to add after-tax to it, you can convert it to a Roth, but do it slowly. Only enough per year to avoid a huge tax bill. Meantime, you have two IRAs, one for pre-tax contributions and one for if you want to put extra savings away.

[MadImmortalMan]

The Limited is closing all of its stores. I'm surprised it took this long though. I bet you can get some deals in liquidation sales.

Strange how Wexner abandoned the original company and just continued with acquired things like Victoria's Secret instead. It's been a few years since they dumped The Limited, I think.

[Phillip V]

The Limited is closing all of its stores. I'm surprised it took this long though. I bet you can get some deals in liquidation sales.

Strange how Wexner abandoned the original company and just continued with acquired things like Victoria's Secret instead. It's been a few years since they dumped The Limited, I think.

All these brick and mortar stores need to go away.  We will be a more happy, prosperous people getting rid of the wasted space.

[Ed Anger]

The Limited is closing all of its stores. I'm surprised it took this long though. I bet you can get some deals in liquidation sales.

Strange how Wexner abandoned the original company and just continued with acquired things like Victoria's Secret instead. It's been a few years since they dumped The Limited, I think.

Sears and Kmart will soon be joining them. Which makes me sad a bit, since I worked at Kmart back in the late 80's- early 90's.

[Admiral Yi]

Gnawing on blocks of gubmint cheese during breaks.

[Ed Anger]

Gnawing on blocks of gubmint cheese during breaks.

I still lived at home. FREE RENT? YES.

[MadImmortalMan]

Gnawing on blocks of gubmint cheese during breaks.

Those blocks were YUGE.

[Admiral Yi]

MW Here's how much ETFs are dominating on the trading floor

Jan 10, 2017 09:10:00 (ET)

By Ryan Vlastelica

Of the 15 most active securities in 2016, 14 were ETFs

Stock traders have become ETF traders.

In a sign of how fast exchange-traded funds have become the dominant security traded on Wall Street, only one of the 15 most heavily traded issues on the stock market in 2016 was actually a stock. The rest were ETFs, which trade like stocks but, like mutual funds, have a variety of holdings.

Total ETF volume in 2016 rose 17% over 2016, according to Credit Suisse. It was up 50% from 2015.To compare, trading volume for stocks rose just 7% between 2014 and 2016.

ETFs are increasingly favored by investors because they offer easy access to pretty much any sector, region, asset class, or strategy, typically with lower fees and greater tax efficiency than mutual funds. While the accessibility of ETFs, the largest of which are index funds, has played into the growing trend of passive investing (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/passive-investing-a-winner-in-2016-shows-no-sign-of-stopping-2016-12-27), the spike in volume indicates that traders are also using the funds as short-term holdings rather than core positions in their portfolios.

In 2016, ETFs accounted for 30% of all U.S. trading in terms of value, and 23% in terms of share volume. Their usage represents remarkably swift adoption of an asset class that is not even 30 years old -- the first launched in 1993. Trading growth could accelerate in 2017 with the implementation of the Labor Department's "fiduciary rule," which is widely expected to favor ETFs (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fiduciary-rule-may-create-a-10-trillion-exchange-traded-behemoth-by-2020-2016-10-05).

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) -- the oldest and largest ETF, with about $230 billion in assets -- was the most traded of any security last year, with an average daily volume of almost 90 million shares. The most active stock, Bank of America Corp. (BAC), came in 13th place, with a little more than 20 million shares traded daily, on average.

Similar results were seen when activity is measured by the value traded, as opposed to just the number of shares. The S&P ETF still came in first, with $19 billion traded in the fund each day, while a stock didn't enter the ranks until 13th place. By this metric, however, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was most active, with less than $1 billion traded.

This is particularly notable as Apple is the largest U.S. company by market cap, at around $626 billion, more than twice the assets of the S&P fund.

U.S. equity funds remain the most popular ETF category by far, in terms of volume. However, other categories saw much faster growth over 2016. While volume for U.S. equity funds rose 19% in 2016, international equity funds grew 55% while fixed income ETFs had volume growth of 68%. Commodity-based funds saw the biggest volume uptick, growing 172%, according to Credit Suisse.

"Equity ETFs still account for the bulk of ETF trading, but the growth is coming from ETFs on other asset classes," wrote the team of Credit Suisse analysts, led by Ana Avramovic, the firm's director of market structure strategy.

The second-most popular ETF by volume was the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), which had almost 80 million shares traded daily. The VanEck fund was one of the best-performing sector funds in 2016; it is expected to be (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-stock-market-sectors-will-be-the-most-volatile-in-2017-goldman-sachs-2017-01-05) one of the most volatile in 2017.

Funds tied to emerging markets (EEM) and financials (XLF) were also widely traded; both saw particular interest after the election of Donald Trump in November. Financials were boosted (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-markets-trump-rally-is-mostly-a-bank-rally-2016-11-17) by expectations of both deregulation and rising interest rates, while emerging markets fell after the election (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-blame-trumps-tough-trade-talk-for-emerging-market-selloff-2016-11-16).

-Ryan Vlastelica; 415-439-6400; [email protected]

[MadImmortalMan]

A Euro costs a buck o five.


Just like freedom.

[Barrister]

The Limited is closing all of its stores. I'm surprised it took this long though. I bet you can get some deals in liquidation sales.

Strange how Wexner abandoned the original company and just continued with acquired things like Victoria's Secret instead. It's been a few years since they dumped The Limited, I think.

All these brick and mortar stores need to go away.  We will be a more happy, prosperous people getting rid of the wasted space.

Nuts to that - I want to be able to handle my merchandise before purchasing, and I want the immediacy of bring an item home as soon as I purchase it.

Online shopping has its place, but it should never be the only option.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It will level out at some point I expect. Market share is getting quite big in some countries :

http://www.invespcro.com/blog/global-online-retail-spending-statistics-and-trends/

[MadImmortalMan]

What news hit in the last few minutes?


Edit: Bloomberg saying a computer algo selling.

[MadImmortalMan]

You know, it seems like mini-flash-crashes are a periodic occurrence now.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm only seeing the 500 down .44%.

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm watching a live daily chart most of the time. A big chunk of the dropoff happened in a couple seconds. Usually if it's a computer flipout, it'll go back where it was pretty fast though.