Trading Tips Blog

Payment processing company Square (SQ) has had a tremendous year. But the market wasn’t too impressed by the company’s recent earnings numbers. While it beat on both revenue and profit expectations, the rate of growth appears to be slowing. That’s led to a selloff in shares, adding to losses from the tech selloff earlier in the week. However, those numbers overlook some more powerful trends in place. For instance, the company saw its revenue derived from Bitcoin rise from over $100 million ...
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Scott Letier, a director at Conduent (CNDT), recently picked up 10,000 shares. The buy increased his stake by 4 percent, and came to a total cost of just under $50,000. He was joined by CEO Clifford Skelton, who bought 20,661 shares, for a total buy of just over $100,000. Overall, insiders have been buyers of shares over the past three years, with no insider sales in that timeframe. Overall, insiders own 6.2 percent of shares. The medical data management company was spun ...
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Video game producer Activision Blizzard (ATVI) has fared well, as strong trends in the gaming industry have led to massive profits. At least one trader sees shares moving higher. That’s based on the May $95 call options. Over 2,700 contracts traded against a prior open interest of 153, for a 18-fold rise in volume on the trade. Expiring in 86 days, the trade is at-the-money, given that shares trade near $96. The buyer paid about $6.50 for the contracts on average. Shares of ...
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Brian Choi, CFO of Avis Budget Group (CAR), recently picked up 23,735 shares. The buy set him back $1.09 million, and represents an initial stake in the company. This marks the first insider buy of the year. Insiders, largely led by a major holder, have been big buyers in the past year.  Company executives have generally been light sellers, provided you go back to 2018 or 2019. The insider buy occurs as shares hit a 52-week high. Shares are up nearly ...
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One lingering trend from the pandemic is more uncertainty than usual from companies when they report their quarterly earnings. Any time a company decides not to provide forward guidance, the market will take the stock down—even if it probably doesn’t deserve it. Take, for instance, Home Depot (HD). The home improvement retailer beat on earnings and revenue expectations—with revenue up 25 percent in the past year. Yet shares dropped as the company didn’t offer guidance. Besides the strong beat, the company ...
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Mohamad Ali, a director at Henry Schein (HSIC), recently picked up 1,000 shares. The buy cost just over $65,000, and is an initial stake by the director. Insider trends also show that it’s the first buy at the firm in the past three years. Insiders have been exclusively sellers over that timeframe, including both directors and C-suite executives. The sales have occurred on a regular basis, so some insiders have sold at lower prices than where shares trade today. Even with ...
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Tech companies are able to reap massive profit margins thanks to scale and costs. For instance, the cost of writing a piece of software is fixed. If a company can sell an additional copy, its marginal cost of production is minimal. That’s also true of other tech services as well. It’s why a number of companies building out their cloud capabilities are able to reap massive profit margins. That’s why it’s no surprise that Oracle (ORCL), a Silicon Valley giant, has been ...
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Energy giant Exxon Mobil (XOM) has been moving higher along with the price of oil in the past few months. At least one trader sees shares taking a breather from here. That’s based on the April $55 put options. The option expires in 52 days. Over 50,800 contracts traded against a prior open interest of 1,055, for a 48-fold jump in volume. The trade is slightly in-the-money as shares are currently going for about $54.50. The option trader paid about $3.40 for ...
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