Facebook, Ford Popular Buys in August Despite Dull Market
The major indexes may have been flat during the month of August, but there was a lot of buying under the surface, especially in popular stocks like Facebook (FB) - Get Report and Ford (F) - Get Report , said Joseph JJ Kinahan, chief strategist TD Ameritrade. 'Retail investors didn't short or sell the dull market in August, they bought things they knew,' said Kinahan. TD Ameritrade's Investor Movement Index (IMX) rose 12.1 percent in August to 5.26 compared to an essentially flat month for the S&P 500. The jump was the largest single month increase for the index. The 52-week high for the IMX is 5.39 while its 52-week low is the current 4.33. Each month, TD Ameritrade pulls a sample from its client base of six million funded accounts that includes all accounts that completed a trade in the past month. The holdings and positions of this statistically significant sample are evaluated to calculate individual scores, and the median of those scores represents the monthly IMX. On the flip side, Bank of America (BAC) - Get Report was net sold as the company's share price was up nearly nine percent at the close of the August IMX period. Alibaba Group Holdings (BABA) - Get Report , which reported earnings in August and saw gains following the announcement, was net sold as well. Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report set a new all-time high in August and Yahoo (YHOO) reached a year-to-date high. Both were net sold in TD Ameritrade client accounts. Additional popular names sold included Alphabet (GOOG) - Get Report , Citigroup (C) - Get Report , and Caterpillar (CAT) - Get Report .
