This week, we're throwing it back to one of our most popular State of the Market videos: Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld's options primer. With more than 23,000 views (plus viewer comments like, "[I] finally get it"), this episode of State of the Market is one of my favorites. It debuted last September with the goal of demystifying what is often an opaque - though profitable - process. The COVID-19 market crash showed many first-time traders how volatile the markets can get - both in downswings and in upswings. As a result, we saw a historic influx of new options traders taking the market by storm. By December 2020, options trading had increased by 50% year over year. Experts likened the phenomenon to sports betting, insisting that once student loan and rent moratoriums ended, stimulus funds ran dry, and a full market cycle passed, the appeal would fade. And while concerns about the delta variant did drive investors out of the market this April, slowing the trend, something on this front remains fundamentally different from the way it was before the pandemic... Whether they were truly (as the experts claim) lounging on the couch with nothing else to do... Whether they were weaponizing the market to wage war against its largest hedge funds in the battles over GameStop (NYSE: GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC)... Whether they were applying their never-ending research into this crisis to change their families' financial outlook... More investors have tasted the forbidden fruit than ever before. And while some got burned, those who trusted the experts or did their own thorough research have seen how powerful options trading can be. It will be hard for them to go back. |
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