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Market Insights

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These Were the Top Symbols at TradeStation Last Month as Stocks Nosedived
These Were the Top Symbols at TradeStation Last Month as Stocks Nosedived

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Stocks just crashed because of coronavirus. Investors responded by flocking to index ETFs in a huge way.

The SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (SPY) shot back up the rankings for TradeStation’s most active symbols. It not only rose two positions to reclaim the top spot for the first time since October. SPY also outpaced its nearest rival by almost 2-to-1.

The change is typical of highly volatile periods like March. Stocks make bigger moves when they fall, and they get more correlated. Stock-picking goes out the window and fast day trading dominates.

Speaking of March, the S&P 500 slid 13 percent — its the biggest monthly decline since October 2008. It capped off the worst quarter since that same period at the peak of the subprime crisis.

SPY knocked Tesla (TSLA) and Apple (AAPL) from the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively. Both moved down one notch from February.

ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ), a leveraged fund tracking the Nasdaq-100, was the fourth most-popular symbol in March. It rose from sixth place the previous month, following the bias toward indexes.

Ford Motor (F) rounded out the top five, inching down one spot from February.

About the author

David Russell is VP of Market Intelligence at TradeStation Group. Drawing on two decades of experience as a financial journalist and analyst, his background includes equities, emerging markets, fixed-income and derivatives. He previously worked at Bloomberg News, CNBC and E*TRADE Financial. Russell systematically reviews countless global financial headlines and indicators in search of broad tradable trends that present opportunities repeatedly over time. Customers can expect him to keep them apprised of sector leadership, relative strength and the big stories – especially those overlooked by other commentators. He’s also a big fan of generating leverage with options to limit capital at risk.