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☆ Retail investors turn to ETFs as recession fears knock down meme stocks
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Medha Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - Retail investors are doubling down on Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) as rising interest rates and volatile markets curb their appetite for risky assets such as meme stocks, SPACs and cryptocurrencies. On average, retail investors' portfolios are down about 39% in 2022 after recording gains of 18% in 2021, JPMorgan analysts Peng Cheng and Emma Wu said. The investment trend, however, is leaning more toward ETFs tracking broader markets and away from the meme stock frenzy of 2021 that saw retail investors banding together on social media forums to fuel eye-popping gains in GameStop (GME.N), AMC (AMC.N) and others. Retail investors' average daily trading volume in U.S. stocks has amounted to $13.8 billion so far in 2022, compared with $14.2 billion a year earlier, which was the peak of meme stock trading frenzy, according to the report. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted to propose some of the biggest changes to American equity market structure in nearly two decades, aimed at boosting transparency and fairness while increasing competition for individual investors' stock orders.

The S&P 500 is down 14.4% year-to-date. U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected in October, supporting the view that inflation was ebbing. Further ahead, some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are now forecasting that the Fed's monetary policy tightening will bring on a recession next year. In options markets, traders appear more preoccupied with not missing out on more gains in stocks than guarding against future declines. The one-month moving average of daily trading in bearish put contracts against bullish calls on the S&P 500 index-tracking SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust's options is at its lowest since January 2022, according to Trade Alert data.

☆ Traders scramble for protection after Fed spooks markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Saqib Iqbal Ahmed | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The index is down about 3% since Tuesday's close and is down around 22% so far in 2022. On Thursday afternoon, with the S&P 500 index-tracking SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust's (SPY.P) shares down 0.6% to $372.56, the most heavily traded SPY contracts were those that would guard against the ETF's shares slipping below $370 by Friday. SPY puts expiring at the end of next week, struck at the $350 mark, just above the ETF's mid-October intra-day low of $348.11, were the fourth most actively traded SPY options on Thursday. "Recent 'Fed meeting volatility' has not necessarily been confined to the Fed day itself," Christopher Jacobson, a strategist at Susquehanna Financial Group, said in a note. "Over the six prior Fed meetings year-to-date, the SPY has seen an average move of +/- 2.8% from the close on Wednesday (Fed day) to Friday's close," he said.

☆ Here’s where investors should look as they search for the leaders of the next bull market
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Michelle Fox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"History has shown us that the leaders of the last bull market are not the leaders of this bull market, at least in the last 50 years," Barry said. Energy, for instead, outperformed in the '70s, but consumer staples led the bull market in the 1980s, he said. When it comes to what could lead the market through the next bull market, energy looks promising, Barry said. In addition to energy, Barry thinks industrials look interesting, particularly aerospace and defense. Overall, he likes small-cap stocks over large cap as leaders of the next bull market, value over growth, U.S. over international and equal-weight funds over market-weight funds.

☆ Wall Street milestone: ETF popularity hits record number
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Noah Sheidlower | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

ETFs are seeing a record surge in popularity. The industry hit a milestone with more than 3,000 ETFs trading simultaneously for the first time ever this month — a 30% increase since December 2020, according to Morningstar. And this year investors are taking more active strategies, such as single-stock ETFs that offer traders exposure to the daily performance of a singular stock like Tesla or Apple. "Investors now are really spoiled for choice among just being able to pick not only the big sector funds or the big overall funds but any kind of fund they think might be interesting," he added. While Ellis believes those who go into ETFs to later dive into index funds will do fine, those choosing highly specialized ETFs are at risk of making disastrous mistakes.

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