Main Street Shopping for Amazon, Walmart Shares Says TD Ameritrade

Main Street felt far better about the markets in October than the prior month, especially regarding retailers like Walmart and Starbucks, said Joe Kinahan, Chief Strategist for TD Ameritrade (AMTD). The TD Ameritrade Investor Movement Index, or the IMX read 4.79 in October, compared to 4.76 in September. The IMX tracks Main Street investor positions and activity to measure what investors are actually doing and how they are positioned in the markets. After a brief dip to start the month, the equity markets stabilized and climbed higher in October. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite both saw gains of greater than 7%, while the Russell 2000 was 3.5% higher to end the month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw strong gains in October, with an 8% increase month over month. Kinahan said TD Ameritrade clients seemed to find some attractive prices on companies that have seen declines recently, including GoPro (GPRO) and SunEdison (SUNE), which were net buys. Both companies also saw analyst downgrades in October. He said retailers attracted client dollars with Walmart (WMT), Amazon.com (AMZN), and Starbucks (SBUX) all being net buys. 'Some people likely thought that the selloff in some of these names was a little overdone and did some bargain hunting,' said Kinahan.