But other big pistons in the economic machine--institutional stock traders--are now basing more decisions on a different type of Wal-Mart effect.
The very low volume indicated it was also due to the activities of other short-term traders, including program-trading firms and flash-traders, in there every day doing their job of making short-term trades for quick profits.
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He backed the UK's recent ban on short-selling - in which traders bet on share prices falling - and said Britain and other governments "should not lose their nerve as they look to identify a few more targets".
Just across the water, Singapore's free-traders have watched back-tracking with alarm.
The fact that some markets, including Wall Street's, recovered quickly suggests that the fall was based on short-lived copy-cat behaviour by traders worried by steep share-price drops in Hong Kong, rather than by important new information about the value of American shares.
What happened to telephone operators, auto mechanics and stock traders--death at the hands of silicon automation--will happen to frontline doctors.
Someday computers could even make superfluous a few of those million-dollar-a-year block traders manning banks of telephones.
Thus armed, day traders are adding a high-tech twist to the well-worn momentum game that exchange-floor traders have played for decades: Buy when markets are rising and sell when they turn south.
This divergence was one of the patterns that short- and intermediate-term traders were able to use in order to begin scaling-in on the long side of the the market at a time when pessimism was rampant.
His mother grew up in an upper-middle-class family but was descended from less-than-noble traders and farmers.
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Successful traders--the only ones we ever really hear about--receive sometimes enormous bonuses explicitly because they're enriching their employers in even more substantial ways.
Plus, this ratio rests just six percentage points from a 12-month low, implying that near-term options traders have rarely been more call-heavy during the past year.
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Managed-money traders reduced their net-long palladium position in the disaggregated report to 23, 973 contracts.
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For platinum, managed-money traders decreased their net-long position to 24, 578 contracts by cutting 1, 712 gross longs and adding 1, 903 gross shorts.
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You have to wonder whether the rest of the world - including traders in oil futures - is taking it seriously enough.
Managed-money traders raised their net-long positions in palladium slightly by adding to both gross longs and shorts, lifting the net-long to 11, 485 contracts.
The Journal reported that federal authorities are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the U.S., and that some charges could be brought by year-end.
In fact, as far as we are concerned, what looks great to many traders--a stock that is moving higher and higher and higher without pause--looks to us pretty unattractive as a candidate for trading.
Managed-money platinum traders increased their net-long position slightly, and are now net long 14, 751 contracts, having raised gross long positions and cut gross shorts.
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Non-commercial traders similarly cut their net-long position in the legacy report by subtracting 8, 989 gross longs and adding 453 gross shorts, which dropped their net-long position to 221, 852 contracts.
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Non-commercial traders similarly lifted their net-long position in the legacy report by adding 6, 038 gross longs and cutting 3, 431 gross shorts, which lifted their net-long position to 223, 344 contracts.
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After the insanity of the dot-com and housing busts left mom-and-pop traders bewildered by lurching markets, many sensibly packed up and left equities for the safety of their mattresses.
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June and July contract calls are the most active with in- and out-of-the-money call buying a seemingly popular strategy amongst traders.
With mark-to-market (economic reporting) in Section 1256, futures traders receive a one-page Form 1099 with their realized and unrealized gains and losses for the year.
The boom over the last six years coincides with the introduction of electronic trading side-by-side with floor traders at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (nyse: CME - news - people ) and the Board of Trade.
The net-long position for managed-money traders in silver rose slightly as they added 759 gross longs and cut 503 shorts, boosting the net-long to 16, 488 contracts.
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Or, in simpler terms, short-term options traders are much more put-heavy than usual right now.
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In other words, near-term options traders have been more put-heavy only 29% of the time in the past year.
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In other words, near-term options traders have been more put-heavy just 15% of the time during the past year.
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Even more telling, this ratio registers in the 74th percentile of its annual range, suggesting short-term options traders are much more put-heavy than usual at the moment.
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