Main Street Favoring Retailers Over Financials Says TD Ameritrade

Investors used the spike in volatility in mid-November to step in and buy consumer discretionary stocks as opposed to running away from the market, said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. 'They were like firemen,' said Kinahan. 'While others were running from the fire, they ran into it and bought more things.' TD Ameritrade’s Investor Movement Index (IMX) rose 1.9% in November to 4.9 compared to a .5% increase in the S&P 500. The IMX was positive for the second month in a row. The 52-week high for the IMX is 5.39 while its 52-week low is 4.63. Each month, TD Ameritrade pulls a sample from its client base of 6 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. Retailers and consumer goods issuers continued to be popular net buys ahead of the holiday shopping season, according to TD Ameritrade. Online retailer Amazon (AMZN) garnered the most interest in the group, although Nike and Starbucks (SBUX) were also popular net buys.