Day Trading News

What a difference a day makes. Wednesday proved to be a very tough day for dry-cargo shipping stocks.

"Despite the scary open, it was encouraging to see equities grow stronger through the end of the day," noted Schaeffer's Senior Equity Analyst Joe Bell, CMT.

Call activity is running hotter than usual on Facebook Inc today, with around 122,000 contracts crossing the tape so far -- a 31% mark-up from the norm, and almost triple the number of puts exchanged.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is poised to extend Wednesday's losses, with futures pointed lower ahead of the bell.

Weekly options were in focus on Apple Inc. yesterday, with the short-term contracts taking the top 10 most actively traded strikes.

American International Group Inc is trading roughly 0.9% higher today, extending its lead north of the $44 mark.

"It was a tale of two days, really," quipped Schaeffer's Senior Technical Strategist Ryan Detrick, CMT, of today's session, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average explored a range of nearly 300 points before settling with a 0.5% loss.

Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com Gold's slump has saddled the second-largest U.S. college endowment with more than $300 million ... (more)

Options traders set their sights on Cisco Systems, Inc. calls on Monday. Roughly 78,000 call contracts crossed the tape during the course of the session, easily outnumbering the approximately 34,000 puts that changed hands.

Of the 20 equities seeing the heaviest options volume in recent sessions, three names of notable interest this afternoon are Groupon Inc , Bank of America Corp , and Microsoft Corporation .

The bears edged out the bulls yesterday in Chesapeake Energy Corporation's options pits, on the news that the company had chosen a new CEO .

"Guerrilla trading," as the colorful term suggests, refers to the technique employed by nimble traders who dart in and out of the financial jungle in short skirmishes that aim to generate quick profits while keeping risk to a minimum.

Traders participate in the financial markets by buying and selling stocks, futures, forex and other securities, and closing out positions with the intention of making small, frequent gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is pointed just north of breakeven ahead of the bell, with stocks poised for another session of consolidation.

The firm currently has $5.10 price target on the stock. Zacks has also updated their ratings on a number of other services stocks in the last week.

The performance of the UAE stock markets is broadly in line with the rise in global stock markets.

The Toronto Stock Exchange surged ahead Friday, encouraged by gains from the U.S. markets, after data showed the world's largest economy may be in recovery.

The stock rose $7.70, or 59.2 percent, to $20.70 in afternoon trading. The shares were priced at $13, at the high end of the expected range of $11 to $13 per share.

"As poor as today's economic data was, the good news was we saw some solid earnings," said Schaeffer's Senior Technical Strategist Ryan Detrick, CMT, of a day where the Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced around breakeven for much of the day, notched new all-time high, and settled 42 points lower.

Investors will likely follow shares of Donaldson Co. and Stage Stores Inc. on Friday as those firms report quarterly results, along with shares of Aruba Networks, which took a drubbing late Thursday.