Some buyout rumor, I guess. You would have had to be sitting in front of your screens and paying attention to a screaming scanner. I was having my teeth cleaned at exactly this time today. Risk / reward wasn't so wonderful as it turned out.
As I note on the chart, the old candlevolume is a poor (man's) substitute for the slick new "Footprint" charts. My buddy @tradergav informs me that they are known as Numbers Bars in Sierra Chart.
Timing of the pop odd since the story was on the AFP wire at 3:32 AM ... maybe it came on the boob tube, I have no idea... in any event, the scanner should have been screaming at 10:50, I assume a human could have entered at $11.38. See the StockTwits screen cap below to see who picked up on it fairly fast: WallStJesus, OpenOutcrier, NewsHedge_Squawk, UTradingFloor, DayTradeWarrior, and TrendsInvesting.
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Supposedly being bought out ... action during the lunch hour telling ... lots of buyers "under the radar" ... still if you got in after the "news" hit, you should have done fine, assuming you were quick.
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I don't usually feature after-hours pops since they're usually earnings-driven, but this was different ... Icahn disclosing a stake in FCX after the close on Thursday, causing it to pop. If you were fast and got in then out before it collapsed again, you could have made a buck. I guess the filings reader bots got to this first but I can see a human getting in at $11.
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Again during the lunch hour ... I guess CNBC got the scoop (leak) ... not much oomph on this one, risk reward wouldn't have made sense in the end, though you wouldn't have lost money, assuming you were quick. Options watchers were aware of unusual activity in the calls before this happened, so the fraudsters (now on a golf course somewhere?) made out once again.
But they didn't hack the press release this time.
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Bit late to post this, happened the Friday before last ... every day trader on planet earth saw this at the same time, scanners blaring across the land ... Bloomberg story is time stamped at 01:42PM: ValueAct Said to Amass AmEx Stake as Activist Seeks Targets but it probably showed up on the Terminal before then, though long after 13:27 when everyone piled in. Once again I can't see a realistic entry without a tick chart, not available to those slumming on the $9.99 datafeed. Hang on the story is time stamped August 7, 2015 — 1:28 PM EDT, which must be the Terminal time stamp, not the web.
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This I did see in real-time but too groggy to do anything about it ... hard to see if it would have been a good play ... when it came back down in the 13:20s to probe around the re-open low, that may have been a place you'd get shaken out ... not that wonderful unless you were one of the early birds in below $65 ... can't tell how many trades went off down there without a tick chart.
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Late to post this, thus the two minute chart ... some "activist" said Macy's worth $125 a share ... quick day traders could have made at least $3 off of this pop, scanner willing. Can't see where the stop would go without a tick chart, but I assume the risk reward would have been decent in the end.
Takeover story posted to fake Bloomberg site ... obviously the perpetrators loaded up on call options in advance and dumped them into the "news" ... I have no idea how people think they can get away with this ... it's so easy to track the purchases back to the broker and the individual accounts, crazy, they will all be caught in short order.
Anyway, as a day trader, you would see this and probably buy in ... say you paid $37.50 getting in, you probably would have lost money or a scratch at best, the whole up and down move was done in ten minutes. As always, I'm interested in talking with people who were involved with it in real time.
TRIP popped at 12:33 PM ... not sure if the scanner would have picked up on it, but it surely would have seen 12:37 PM.
As I've said time and again the one minute chart is not particularly useful for seeing where you could realistically enter and place stops, you need a tick chart for that, and my buddy @HCPG kindly provided me with two ten tick charts below:
You can see that it would have been tough (for the scanner) to spot between 12:32 and 12:37 ...
It's during the 12:37 bar that activity really picks up and it would be sounding multiple alarms ... even with a "bad" entry of $79 (better at $78) things would have worked out into the close, risk versus reward worthwhile (said with the benefit of hindsight).
StockTwits stream, usual suspects NewsHedge_Squawk and OpenOutcrier ... Moench first to notice at 12:34 which gives me hope that the scanner would have bleeped, beating the pack.
