Latest news with #ScottBauer
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trader Suggests Potential Bullish Options Strategies Involving Palantir Technologies (PLTR) Stock
Scott Bauer, appearing on Schwab Network yesterday, suggested potential bullish options strategies involving Palantir Technologies (PLTR) stock in the wake of its first-quarter earnings report. Bauer is the CEO of the Prosper Trading Academy. On the same segment, Rick Ducat, the network's Lead Market Technician, analyzed the technical status of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) stock. Bauer's Potential Options Strategies The trader is waiting for the shares to fall to the "$105 area" before pulling the trigger on his bullish options strategy. "If the stock drops further, the opportunity is really there for some nice" gains, Bauer said. The trader was considering buying calls that expire on May 30, and he was looking to employ a $110 to $120 call spread strategy while paying a premium of about $3. Alternatively, traders can sell puts on the name, he said. Ducat's Technical Analysis Palantir Technologies (PLTR) tested the 21-day exponential moving average recently but did not quite fall to that level, Ducat said. Similarly, it never reached the key $105 level which was also cited by Bauer. The stock's Relative Strength Interval "was below overbought levels," but the shares' RSI stayed above 50, indicating that they retain "bullish momentum," added the market technician. Key upside levels include the "double top" level near $125 and the "plus 1 standard deviation channel just below $135," noted Ducat. While we acknowledge the potential of PLTR, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PLTR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This zero-day options craze could finally be coming to popular stocks like Nvidia and Tesla. Here's what to know.
Any option due to expire at the end of a session is considered a 0DTE contract. Technically, every option becomes a 0DTE on the last day of its life. 'They're not pure 0DTEs in the sense that they're not listed every day, but it's getting pretty close,' Garrett DeSimone, head of quantitative research at OptionMetrics, told MarketWatch. Although a Nasdaq executive declined to comment on the exchange's plans, traders and industry experts who spoke with MarketWatch said that, if all goes well, contracts expiring on Tuesdays and Thursdays could soon follow. Currently, options tied to individual common stocks only expire on Fridays, while contracts tied to some stock-market indexes and highly liquid ETFs have more frequent expirations. 'It's probably been a long time in the making,' Scott Bauer, CEO of Prosper Trading Academy and a former floor trader on a major options exchange, told MarketWatch. In a filing published late last week, Nasdaq Inc. officially asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to expand offerings of option contracts tied to a handful of individual stocks. If the SEC signs off, the exchange would be allowed to list options tied to a select group of stocks that expire on Mondays and Wednesdays, giving traders two more opportunities per week to trade option contracts on the edge of expiration. But after a long wait, they could soon be coming for popular stocks such as Nvidia Corp. NVDA and Tesla Inc. TSLA During the trading week, investors have been limited to trading 0DTE contracts tied to stock-market indexes like the S&P 500 and a handful of popular ETFs, including the Invesco QQQ Trust. A surge in trading of so-called 'zero days to expiry' — or '0DTE' — options has contributed to an options-market boom over the past few years, drawing in both sophisticated investors and amateur speculators. Story Continues Traders who spoke with MarketWatch have said the appeal of these contracts lies in the small chance of an outsize gain. If the market pushes them into the money before they expire, it could lead to a large windfall for a trader who had bought them minutes or hours earlier. Back in 2022, popular exchange operators like Cboe Global Markets expanded offerings tied to the S&P 500 and a few popular ETFs to allow traders to trade 0DTE contracts every day of the trading week. The change helped accelerate a boom in options trading that had begun shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The average daily trading volume in these extremely short-dated contracts has been climbing steadily since. 0DTE volumes in S&P 500 index options hit a record during the first quarter of 2025, according to Cboe data. A Cboe analyst estimated that roughly 50% to 60% of the average daily activity in S&P 500 0DTE contracts involves amateur individual investors, although the exact share is difficult to determine precisely. - CBOE GLOBAL MARKETS Their rise has coincided with a surge in activity across the broader U.S. equity-options market. According to the Options Clearing Corporation, the industry's main clearinghouse, more than 12 billion contracts changed hands in 2024, setting a record for the fifth year in a row. It appears another record could follow in 2025, with the industry already on track to top 14 billion contracts traded, according to Henry Schwartz, vice president of market intelligence at Cboe. - CBOE GLOBAL MARKETS 'We're working closely with everybody' The SEC has up to 240 days to approve or deny Nasdaq's request once the filing is published in the Federal Register, which had not yet happened as of Tuesday morning. A representative for the SEC didn't return a request for comment from MarketWatch. Once approved, these options could start trading within days. Nasdaq's decision to request the change was the culmination of a lengthy process by exchanges, brokerage platforms, market makers and other options-industry players. The goal was to figure out the best way to introduce more short-dated contracts tied to shares of individual stocks in a manner that would minimize risks for the industry and its customers. Ultimately, the exchange decided that Monday and Wednesday contracts wouldn't be listed on any day when the underlying company is due to report quarterly earnings. This should help to limit the chances that volatile swings in stocks after the closing bell could complicate trade settlements, a Nasdaq representative said. 'We're working closely with everybody to make sure we're doing this in a safe and responsible way,' said Greg Ferrari, a senior vice president at Nasdaq within the market platforms division. The changes proposed by Nasdaq would only allow Monday and Wednesday expirations for a handful of stocks and one additional ETF. As of January 2025, only contracts tied to Nvidia, Tesla, Apple Inc. AAPL, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, Broadcom Inc. AVGO, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, Meta Platforms Inc. META and Inc. AMZN would be eligible for the Monday and Wednesday listings, along with the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund ETF XLF. 'Lottery tickets' Options-market activity has been trending toward shorter-dated contracts for years, said OptionMetrics' DeSimone. At the same time, the advent of free-to-trade electronic brokerages has helped inspire a new generation of amateur individual investors to try their hand at options trading. Making it easier to trade 0DTE tied to individual stocks could accelerate both of these trends, DeSimone said. While institutional players still dominate index options, individual traders are more active in the single-stock space, DeSimone said. DeSimone cautioned that anybody interested in trading these products should keep their risk profile in mind. Some in the industry have likened 0DTE contracts to 'lottery tickets' that offer a small chance of a large payout, and a high likelihood that the contract will expire worthless. JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America, parent of brokerage tastytrade, pushed back against this characterization, calling it hyperbolic. He said many investors trade 0DTE options as part of spread strategies involving more than one contract, allowing them to more precisely manage their risk. Nasdaq and others have said that 0DTEs can help large traders more tactically manage their risk. 'I think people are excited for the opportunity, but again I think we'll need to do some more education regarding exercise and assignment risk,' Kinahan said. 'We have to continue to educate as to what the risks of these are, especially after the close.' Most Read from MarketWatch
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Making sense of the action in the VIX
The CBOE Volatility Index, also known as the VIX, helps traders gauge the level of expected volatility in the stock market. The VIX has spiked since the announcement of President Trump's tariff plans. In the video above, Prosper Trading Academy CEO Scott Bauer helps investors make sense of the action in the closely watched index. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. The market has seen outside swings to both the upside and downside due to tariff whiplash. The volatility index soared last week to the highest since early 2020. That's according to Bloomberg, as investors continue to grapple with uncertainty. Where does this leave the options market? Prosper Trading Academy CEO Scott Bauer joins us now to discuss in the Options Pit sponsored by Tastytrade. Scott, it's good to see you so uh. You too, Josh. May I start here, Scott? Listen, um lots of volatility in this market. What kind of opportunities do you think, Scott, that that presents to investors, especially maybe Scott investors who are who are listening right now and and they're new to options? Sure. So if you're following the VIX and I'm standing here in the VIX pit at the CBOE. If you're following the VIX, something to remember is if you see a VIX more normalized long term around 16, that's equivalent to about a 1% move in daily moving the S&Ps. 32, which is pretty much where we're at right now, that's a 2% daily move. 48, 3%, so on and so forth. When we see this elevated level 30 or above, it typically does not stay here very long. In fact, if you look at historically going back to when the VIX started back in in the mid to early 90s here, uh above 30 is, you know, maybe it stays for a few days, maybe we see a week. And then we normalize here. In fact, over the history of the VIX, anytime it's really soared and it's gotten above 50, which is really kind of a capitulation panic level for most investors here. That year, the returns and moving forward have all been positive. So is this time different? You guys were just talking, maybe this time is different. You know, when we go through these cycles, we always say that, whether it was COVID, whether it was, you know, the Y2K issues, whether it was a great financial crisis. Is this time different? Maybe. It's it you know, I'm not an investment advisor, I'm a trader. So it's easy for me to just say, hang on, hold on in there. The opportunity really is though, quite frankly, to sell some volatility. Kind of a broader question, Scott, too, just why I have you. I mean, you have been, listen, Scott, you've been thinking about, studying, and trading these markets for a long time. Especially in a day like this, I think a lot of people, some people at least, they, you know, investors get nervous when they see a day like this. Just broader, Scott, I just it's really what you make of these markets. Well, it it's difficult. It's really difficult to be honest because we really haven't been through a time before, regardless of the periods of time where we've seen the VIX spike, where we know the markets can change in a heartbeat, literally in a second on a tweet, on a you know, a news clipping. We have not been through that before. So I think this time going through here, that uncertainty is heightening that VIX level, is heightening, you know, some some of the nervousness that people are feeling out there. And the fact that we keep seeing changes almost on a daily basis coming out of the administration is also a very unsettling feeling. This too shall pass, but is it going to be a matter of days, weeks, months? Is it going to continue through the end of the year? I can't tell you that. I know that the opportunities to trade though are excellent. The markets in the VIX, the markets in the S&P, they're deep, they're robust, they're liquid. So as a trader, it's great. If you're a longer term investor, you probably just got to look historically and say, all right, I'm along for the ride. And Scott, we were talking earlier about semiconductors and the different opportunities there. I know you have some ideas around TSM. Can you give us some trade color on that and what you see in the options market? Absolutely. You know, it's really tough just because of the the constant news cycle. If it weren't for what's going on right now, I have no qualms that TSM would be a $200 plus stock. But we do have, you know, the current news cycle to contend with. Earnings tomorrow morning, I want to be long this stock even in the face of everything that's going on. So what I am doing is I am selling tomorrow's, excuse me, next week's expiring 150, 140 put spread. $10 wide put spread. Could have done that for about three, three and a half dollars today, which was a lot of premium. I normally would not sell a put spread that wide, but looking at this stock, I want to be long this stock 146, 147 area if it were to come down there. So I don't mind selling this put spread, getting the extensive premium, and then seeing what happens. Again, if I had a longer time horizon on this, if it was more of an investment than a trade, I would probably look at it a little bit differently. Scott, great to see you and have you on the show today. Thanks for joining us. Thanks so much.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Highly pathogenic avian influenza detected in Buena Vista County
(Photo by Scott Bauer/Agriculture Research Service, USDA) The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship announced Thursday it had detected the highly pathogenic avian influenza in a commercial turkey flock in Buena Vista County. Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for the county, through March 15 to help state and local officials contain the spread of the H5N1 virus and dispose of the depopulated birds. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX This is the third detection of the virus in Iowa flocks this year; the last detection occurred Feb. 2 at a commercial egg laying facility in O'Brien County. O'Brien County has been under an extended disaster proclamation from the governor since December 2024. USDA strengthens biosecurity requirements for bird flu related indemnity payments According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this is the first outbreak in Buena Vista County since 2023. Since the start of the current outbreak three years ago, nearly 159 million birds have been affected by HPAI. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue rate the public health threat of the bird flu as low, though 68 people in U.S. have reportedly contracted the flu, primarily from being in proximity to sick birds or dairy cattle. IDALS urges Iowans to avoid, and keep their pets away from, wild or migratory birds that appear sick or dead. Backyard and commercial poultry farmers are encouraged to practice heightened biosecurity and look out for signs of the bird flu like lethargy, coughing, decreased egg production or swelling of the head in their flocks. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
