What TD Ameritrade's Investor Movement Index Can Tell You About Equity Trends On Main Street

In a video published Tuesday, TD Ameritrade’s Managing Director of Trading, Nicole Sherrod, shared a look into what the firm’s clients did over January. It seems like TD Ameritrade’s customers were net buyers of equities in the first month of the year. “However, an increase in overall market volatility coupled with relative stability of some widely held positions resulted in a decrease in the IMX [Investor Movement Index] reading," Sherrod explained.

What’s The IMX?

The IMX provides aggregate data of Main Street investors’ positions and their activity each month.

Over January, the IMX fell to 4.52, while the S&P 500 tumbled lower, marking its worst start to a year since 2010. As stated above, in this context, TD Ameritrade’s clients were net buyers of equities over the month. Unusually, a rise in overall market volatility and relative stability of some widely held positions led to a drop in the IMX.

Global economic concerns including large selloffs in the Chinese stock market “that triggered circuit breakers and halts to trading seemed to drag the markets lower,” Sherrod expounded.

A Few Names

In addition, a surge in the oil supply put plenty of pressure on oil prices, which, in turn, affected the stock market adversely, she continued.

Facebook Inc FB and Apple Inc. AAPL both reported their quarterly earnings in January, catching TDA’s customers’ attention, and ended up being net buys.

Netflix, Inc. NFLX announced, earlier than expected, a global widening on its video streaming offering, which made it a net buy as well.

Among the companies that TDA’s clients net sold in January, investors can count Yahoo! Inc. YHOO and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA.

Check out the full video below.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.