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Options trading offers retail investors flexible ways to speculate on market movements or hedge existing portfolio positions. But, like all financial markets, it requires careful navigation and can be risky. This guide explains the core mechanics of options trading, the key risks, and how to manage your exposure.
An option is a derivative contract — a financial agreement where value is "derived" from an underlying ***** et, such as a stock, index, or commodity. It grants the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell that ***** et at a set price (called the strike price) within a specified time frame.
Every options trade involves two entities: a buyer and a seller. The buyer pays for the contract and gains the right to buy or sell the ***** et. They have no obligation to act if the trade moves against them. The seller sells the contract, taking on an obligation to buy or sell the ***** et if the buyer chooses to exercise that right.
There are two primary types of options, calls and puts, and they work like this:

#options #trading #like

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Find out how much you could earn by locking in a high CD rate today. The Federal Reserve cut its federal funds rate three times in 2025. So far in 2026, the Fed has left interest rates alone, and so now could be your last chance to lock in a competitive CD rate before rates move further. CD rates vary widely across financial institutions, so it's important to ensure you're getting the best rate possible when shopping around for a CD.
The following is a breakdown of CD rates today and where to find the best offers.
Generally, the best CD rates today are offered on shorter terms of around one year or less. Online banks and credit unions, in particular, offer the top CD rates.
Today, Saturday, August 8, 2026, the highest CD rate is 4.15%. This rate is offered by Synchrony Bank on its 14-month CD.

#rate #best #find #advertiser

Platinum ****** et Management, an investment management company, released its Q2 2026 investor letter for "Platinum International Brands Fund". A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned over 4% in the quarter but lost 14% over the past year, primarily due to the dominance of tech stocks amid an AI investment boom. Consumer-focused sectors underperformed due to weak sentiment and challenges such as high interest rates and rising oil prices, which have contributed to record-low consumer confidence. However, the fund's holdings remain fundamentally strong, with top holdings averaging 13% sales growth and 19% profit growth. The letter noted that positive developments include resumed job growth, reduced oil prices, and easing fiscal policy, which potentially enhance consumer sentiment. In addition, please check the Fund's top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its Q2 2026 investor letter, Platinum International Brands Fund highlighted Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) as a notable contributor. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) is a leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives. On July 28, 2026, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) closed at $840.85 per share, reflecting a market capitalization of $387.29 billion. Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) posted a one-month return of -15.19%, and its shares gained 93.69% over the past 52 weeks.
Platinum International Brands Fund stated the following regarding Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) in its Q2 2026 investor update:
"Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) (+36%) was another strong performer, shrugging off a 14% fall in profit. Steel is a key input and tariffs hurt; management is working on remedies, but they will take time. Beneath the surface, demand is heating up. Cat's engines and turbines power locomotives, ships, oil rigs, gas pipelines and now datacentres, a source of demand as ferocious as it is price-insensitive. Add a mining and energy complex emerging from a decade of underinvestment and a depressed construction sector turning the corner and the prospects look bright."
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) is not on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 87 hedge fund portfolios held Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) at the end of the first quarter, up from 86 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

#NYSE #letter #international #Consumer

London looks set to open in the red on Friday, with tech selling and oil topping $100 a barrel combining to darken the mood heading into the weekend.
Futures traders have the FTSE 100 called 40 points lower, building on Thursday's 77-point decline to 10,639. The blue-chip index faces pressure from two directions: a sharp Wall Street sell-off driven by disappointing Big Tech earnings, and fresh geopolitical anxiety in the Middle East pushing oil prices to triple figures for the first time in months.
US stocks fell heavily overnight, with the Nasdaq leading the way down 2.2% as investors took a dim view of quarterly results from Alphabet and Tesla. The S&P 500 dropped 1.2%, its worst session of the month, while the Dow shed 1%.
The problem wasn't the earnings themselves, according to Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya; it was the spending. "Earnings themselves were not the problem; spending and evaporating free cash flow were," she said. "Both Alphabet and Tesla stood by their capital investment plans, while Alphabet raised its capex outlook by $15 billion to $205 billion. Meanwhile, free cash flow at both Alphabet and Tesla turned negative in the second quarter."
Ozkardeskaya warned that Big Tech, once defined by being capital-light and cash-heavy, is becoming the opposite: increasingly reliant on equity and debt issuance to finance AI ambitions at a time when interest rate expectations are moving higher.

#tesla #ozkardeskaya

By Leo Marchandon
July 23 (Reuters) - SAP's finance chief said on Thursday that artificial intelligence in enterprise software must move beyond chatbots and ‌coding tools into more complex business processes, where clean data, reliability ‌and cost control matter more than access to the most powerful model.
Companies have poured money into generative AI but are still seeking evidence of broad productivity gains, and SAP is arguing that the returns will come less from general-purpose models than from governed systems embedded in specific business processes.
CFO Dominik Asam told reporters after SAP's ‌second-quarter results that the "lion's share" ⁠of AI token consumption today was spent in "low-hanging fruits" coding ******* istant and chatbots, where AI's hallucinations matter less because the ⁠output carries limited risk if it fails.
But applying AI to finance, supply chain or other core business processes is harder because errors carry over multiple steps, increasing risk against compliance standards, he said.

#coding #matter #marchandon #july

With a market cap of $60.6 billion, Targa Resources Corp. (TRGP) owns and operates a diversified portfolio of natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGL), and crude oil **** ets across North America. Through its Gathering and Processing and Logistics and Transportation segments, the company provides integrated services spanning production, storage, transportation, marketing, and resale of energy commodities.
The Houston, Texas-based company is set to deliver its fiscal Q2 2026 results soon. Ahead of this event, **** ysts forecast TRGP to report an EPS of $2.64, a decline of 8% from $2.87 in the previous year's quarter. It has exceeded Wall Street's bottom-line estimates in two of the past four quarters while missing on two other occasions.
Huge, Unusual Intel Options Volume Today Ahead of Earnings This Week
Intel Stock Is Down, But Put Premiums are High - Put Short Sellers Love the High Yields
The Number Tesla Stock Bulls Are Really Waiting for This Earnings Season Has Nothing to Do With Cars

#Stock

This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com.
In another one of this week's tests of investor sentiment around artificial intelligence (AI) – and a tentpole one at that -- Google's parent company, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), reports second-quarter results after the close of U.S. markets on Wednesday, July 22.
This report could be an opportune time for short-term traders to consider Alphabet single-stock ETFs, such as the Direxion Daily GOOGL Bull 2X Shares (GGLL) and the Direxion Daily GOOGL Bear 1X Shares (GGLS). When preparing for Alphabet's earnings with these funds, traders should note that GGLL attempts to deliver 200% of the daily returns of the internet stock, while the bearish GGLS seeks intraday performances corresponding with the inverse returns of Alphabet.
Although shares of Alphabet are up 12% year to date, they have slipped 3% over the past month — perhaps signaling a near-term burden of proof for the company as it heads into its earnings report. If that's accurate, either GGLL or GGLS could be worth considering.
"Look for Google Cloud growth in both quarterly numbers and contracted future revenue (or backlog)," noted Malik Khan of Morningstar. "We think investors want certainty that the $460 billion backlog will convert to sales over the next two years, and also want to know what that trajectory will look like. Non-backlog factors, such as consumption-based spending and new commitments, will be important for understanding the health of the cloud business."

#daily #cloud

QQQ trades near $720, up 17% YTD, but NVIDIA's $5.1 trillion weighting means a handful of mega-caps effectively control the fund's direction.
Nvidia guided Q2 revenue to $91 billion while Meta raised its 2026 capex guide to $145 billion, validating AI infrastructure spending for now.
The 10-year Treasury at 4.62% sits near 12-month highs, and a sustained break above 4.75% would compress QQQ's long-duration growth-stock multiples fastest.
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The Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) trades near $720, up roughly 17% year to date and about 29% over the past year. Memory names like Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) are up roughly 245% YTD while Microsoft has fallen about 20% in the same window. For anyone holding QQQ into the second half of 2026, two factors matter more than the fund's 100-stock label suggests.

The company's stock climbed less on the sales it made and more on the mountain of orders it couldn't yet fill.
If you held Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) over the last year, congratulations. You watched a legacy tech giant deliver a +141% return, leaving the S&P 500's +22% in the dust. The story behind that run reveals something more fundamental than a great quarter or two: a company suddenly facing so much demand that its biggest problem is figuring out how to build everything fast enough.
The entire move was underpinned by a simple, powerful dynamic: orders were coming in far faster than products were going out. Management put it plainly, stating that in its most recent quarter, "Orders more than doubled significantly outpacing revenue, resulting in a record company backlog." That backlog became the market's focal point, a tangible sign of future revenue that gave investors confidence in a story that was just getting started.
Why Are Orders Surging Outside Of AI?
While AI gets all the headlines, the demand surge at HPE was surprisingly broad. Yes, the company booked another $1.8 billion in new AI systems orders. But the real tell was in the less glamorous corners of the data center. "Traditional server orders increased triple digits," the CEO noted, as companies rushed to modernize their existing infrastructure to handle the coming wave of AI inferencing workloads. The demand extended beyond training large models to the crucial task of upgrading everything else to actually use them. This demand was so strong that management now expects to hit its long-term earnings and cash flow targets two years ahead of schedule.

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Shares in the membership-based retailer Costco fell 4.1% on Thursday after a June sales update failed to meet Wall Street's lofty expectations.
That continued a weeks-long slump, but it also means the stock is looking more and more like one of the chain's hot dog deals.
Sign up for The Daily Upside at no cost for premium ****** ysis on all your favorite stocks.
READ ALSO: Can SK Hynix Escape Chipmaking's Cyclical Curse After Nasdaq Debut? and AstraZeneca Plunges After New Heart Disease Drug Fails Trial

With an average upside potential of 37.37% according to Wall Street **** ysts, SLB N.V. (NYSE:SLB) is included among the 10 Most Promising Energy Stocks to Buy Now.
SLB N.V. (NYSE:SLB) engages in the provision of technology for the energy industry worldwide.
On July 1, Citi cut its price recommendation on SLB N.V. (NYSE:SLB) from $68 to $63, but maintained a 'Buy' rating on the shares. The lowered target still represents an upside of over 18% from the current levels.
Citi trimmed its estimates for SLB's second quarter, saying that the ongoing weakness in the Middle East is expected to negatively impact the company's EBITDA growth. The **** yst firm believes that SLB is unlikely to see any significant upside unless the headwinds in the region begin to subside.
Back in January, SLB N.V. (NYSE:SLB) guided its FY 2026 revenue to be between $36.9 billion and $37.7 billion, but this outlook **** umed oil prices to remain range-bound in the high 50s to low 60s. However, the recent US-Iran war pushed global crude prices to multi-year highs, providing a significant boost to operators like SLB. The company is also targeting to nearly double annual revenues in its digital business to as much as $2 billion by 2030, with margins expanding to a range of 38%-42% towards the end of the decade.

Artisan Partners, an investment management firm, issued its first-quarter 2026 investor letter for the "Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund". A copy of this letter is available for download here. In Q1 2026, the portfolio underperformed the benchmark Russell Midcap Value Index as the market favored momentum-driven stocks over quality factors. Some holdings faced company-specific setbacks and negative sentiment. The Fund's Investor Class: ARTQX returned -4.93%, Advisor Class: APDQX declined by -4.90%, and Institutional Class: APHQX fell by -4.97%, all trailing the Index's 3.68% gain. The equity market in the quarter was mixed, with mid- and small-cap indices showing resilience despite lagging large-cap growth stocks. Volatility increased, initially fueled by interest in AI and private credit, but escalated after the outbreak of war in Iran, leading to rising oil prices. Sector performance varied, with energy leading the gains. The Fund continues to seek companies capable of value growth during market dislocations at attractive entry points. Also, review the Fund's top five holdings to see its best picks for 2026.
In its first-quarter 2026 investor letter, Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund highlighted Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR). Headquartered in Midland, Texas, Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR) is an independent oil and natural gas company. On July 7, 2026, Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR) closed at $19.09 per share. One-month return of Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR) was -3.24%, and its shares gained 34.91% over the past 52 weeks. Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR) has a market capitalization of $15.98 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Value Fund stated the following regarding Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:
"Our energy holdings were well represented among our top contributors, benefiting from higher energy prices. Permian Resources Corporation (NYSE:PR), an independent oil and gas company, and NOV, the largest manufacturer of oilfield equipment, led the way. We added PR to the portfolio in Q1 2025. PR is focused solely on the Delaware Basin of West Texas and southwestern New Mexico—the most prolific oil-producing region in the US. The founders and co-CEOs, who also have large ownership interests in the business, have sought to build a business that can produce substantial free cash flow, return capital to shareholders and generate attractive equity returns across varied commodity price environments. To achieve these goals, PR has pursued best-in-class operations and responsible capital stewardship by thoughtfully acquiring ****** ets it believes are undervalued and divesting acreage it believes would be better in someone else's hands, while meaningfully returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends. We always seek to align ourselves with shareholder-oriented management teams, but we believe this is even more critical when investing in mid-sized energy companies given their depe

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) was among the stocks on Jim Cramer's Mad Money radar as he taught investors how to profit from the upcoming wave of takeovers. Cramer made a prediction about the company during the episode, as he said:
Finally, there's Tesla. No issues here. I think it'll be bought by ******* eX sooner rather than later. But in the end, the Magnificent Seven ain't what they used to be. Investors fell in love with these companies for their impressive free cash flow… for their profits. Now, they're spending all that cash on a race for AI supremacy. And by the way, always lurking, of course, are Anthropic and OpenAI, powerful… competitors. The spend can only be defended by profitability, not press releases.
Photo by Tesla Fans Schweiz on Unsplash
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) designs and sells electric vehicles and also develops and installs solar energy and storage systems for residential, commercial, and industrial customers. In addition, the company is working on autonomous vehicles and robots. Cramer discussed the stock during the May 26 episode, as he remarked:
Seven is Tesla. When we think of Tesla, we think of cars, but we really should be thinking about self-driving vehicles and robots, which will be the big growth engines. Lots of people think that Elon Musk will merge this company with the soon-to-be-public ******* eX, where he has a dual-class structure that would allow him to break away from the noisome, unhappy Tesla shareholder base. I don't blame him if he does it.

We just covered Avoid **** eX and Buy These 11 Stocks Instead. Mercado Libre (NASDAQ:MELI) ranks #7 (see Avoid **** eX and Buy These 5 Stocks Instead).
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 102
Mercado Libre (NASDAQ:MELI) stock tanked 11 percent this year. Reddit's been all over it, saying this is the real play instead of buying into the **** eX IPO craze. The company owns the biggest marketplace and payment system across Latin America. They've got Brazil, Mexico, and a bunch of other countries locked down.
The stock looks expensive at first glance with a PE of 28x to 40x. But the growth doesn't match that valuation. The price-to-growth ratio is 1.25 while the sector average is 1.40. So it's actually trading cheaper than its peers relative to how fast it's growing.
Q1 2026 was solid. Revenue grew 49 percent year-over-year. Brazil was crushing it with 54 percent growth. They hit 84 million active users on the marketplace up 26 percent. The payment side had 82.9 million monthly users, up 29 percent. **** ets under management hit almost $20 billion, up from $11 billion a year ago.

The price of gold has come crashing down this year. Currently hovering around the $4,000 level, it's nowhere near the highs it reached earlier in the year, when it was well above $5,000. That also means that exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the precious metal are also down big. The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEMKT: GLD) fund is now down 6% for the year, and it has fallen 27% from its 52-week high of nearly $510.
But with gold typically being in high demand amid worsening economic conditions, and the country still being on shaky ground these days due to rising inflation, could now be an optimal time to add the SPDR Gold Shares ETF to your portfolio?
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
Gold is a safe-haven ****** et that investors typically buy when they're worried about broader economic conditions. However, with the stock market rallying this year and reaching new heights, there may not be much of an incentive to buy an ****** et that is highly speculative in nature and that doesn't produce anything or generate any dividend income.
Plus, with interest rates potentially rising this year, there may be opportunities for investors to secure higher yields from relatively safe investments; demand for gold may not be all that high, especially with the U.S. dollar at elevated levels, making the precious metal even more expensive for foreign buyers. While demand may spike if renewed fears of a recession emerge, as of now, there may not be much reason to expect gold prices to rally this year.

Interested in onsemi? Here are five stocks we like better.
onsemi shares sold off sharply after the company announced an all-stock deal to acquire Synaptics.
The acquisition would expand onsemi beyond power and sensing into connected compute, control and edge AI.
Dilution and execution risks remain, but the deal could strengthen onsemi's long-term physical AI strategy.
onsemi's (NASDAQ: ON) stock price imploded by more than 25% following the unexpected acquisition of Synaptics (NASDAQ: SYNA). The critical detail (the one triggering the sell-off) is what the market got wrong: this isn't a desperate grab at acquisitional growth, diluting shareholder value for limited gain, but a strategic push into physical AI.

Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) is one of the best low volatility stocks to buy under $50. Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) announced on June 18 an expansion of the Nederland NGL Export Terminal to meet additional customer demand. The company stated that the project will expand ethane export capacity at Nederland by 240,000 barrels per day, along with 55,000 bpd of additional LPG capacity. It added that one hundred percent of the ethane export capacity has been committed in long-term agreements running into the 2040's.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) has exported more than 430 million barrels since it began exporting ethane out of Nederland in 2021, with the project exhibiting that the continued growth in global NGL demand supports the expansion of the company's Nederland ******* ets. The company also stated that as part of these transactions, it will expand its Mont Belvieu to Nederland NGL export pipeline capacity to service the increased refrigeration capacity and construct two additional NGL ship docks. The previously announced expansion of the Nederland refrigerated propane and butane storage tanks to 1.2 million barrels and 0.8 million barrels, respectively, is anticipated to be available in the first half of 2027.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) offers natural gas pipeline transmission and transportation services. The company operates through the following segments: Intrastate Transportation and Storage, Interstate Transportation and Storage, Midstream, NGL and Refined Products Transportation and Services, Crude Oil Transportation and Services, Investment in Sunoco LP, Investment in USAC, and All Other.
While we acknowledge the potential of ET as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.
READ NEXT: 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years AND 12 Best Stocks That Will Always Grow.

PayPal was one of the first major financial institutions to launch a stablecoin. Now, as Wall Street races to catch up, the company is trying to answer a different question: How do you stay ahead once everyone else decides stablecoins matter?
For Larry Wade, who leads global risk, regulatory relations, and compliance for PayPal's crypto business unit, the answer starts with a simple observation. Despite years of growth and hundreds of billions of dollars flowing into stablecoins, the industry has barely scratched the surface of its intended use case.
"About $350 billion of stablecoin flows, less than 1% of that is actually true payments," Wade told Coinage during an interview at the Solana Policy Institute's Chicago conference. "Look at how much value there is to capture."
By Wade's estimate, stablecoins are still merely in their second inning. That opportunity helps explain why PayPal spent years building crypto infrastructure long before Washington passed the GENIUS Act and before stablecoins became a priority for nearly every major bank and payments company.
When PayPal first entered crypto roughly five years ago, the company faced a regulatory landscape with few clear rules and little precedent. Rather than moving aggressively, Wade says the company deliberately chose a slower path, leaning heavily on New York's BitLicense framework while adapting its existing risk and compliance systems to digital ****** ets.

Amazon's AI spending spree is helping fuel Wall Street's excitement around artificial intelligence. But inside the company itself, some employees say speaking out about that growth could put their jobs at risk.
A group of Amazon workers has filed a complaint with Seattle officials, alleging the company launched investigations into employees who publicly criticized the rapid expansion of AI data centers and called for stronger government oversight. (1)
Robert Kiyosaki says this 1 ****** et will surge 400% in a year and begs investors not to miss this 'explosion'
Millionaires under 43 hold only 25% of their wealth in stocks. Surprised? Here's where their money is actually going
Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — here are 5 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one

Seagate Technology (STX) is highlighted for exceptional price momentum and strong technical buy signals, with a 744% gain over the past year.
STX maintains a 100% "Buy" technical opinion.
Analysts project robust fundamentals including over 80% earnings growth this year.
Most Wall Street ****** ysts rate STX a "Strong Buy." This bull rating is supported by low short interest and positive sentiment.
Valued at $240 billion, Seagate Technology (STX) is one of the largest manufacturers of hard disk drives (HDDs) in the U.S.

Some offers on this page are from advertisers who pay us, which may affect which products we write about, but not our recommendations. See our Advertiser Disclosure.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) opened at $63,242.26 on Monday, 1.6% lower than Sunday's opening price. As of 9:37 a.m. ET this morning, the price of bitcoin moved up to $65,218.60.
Ethereum (ETH-USD) opened at $1,704.90 on Monday, down 2% from Sunday's opening price. The price of ethereum moved higher this morning to $1,775.80 as of 9:37 a.m. ET.
Despite a more hawkish Fed, anticipating rate increases later this year, prices of bitcoin and ethereum are holding pretty steady. While the price of each opened lower than yesterday's opening value, prices for both are moving higher this morning.
Prices this morning are now quite close to where they were following the conclusion of the Fed's two-day meeting last week.