TD Ameritrade's IMX Growth Hits Record High In May: Check Out Clients' Picks & Pans

TD Ameritrade’s latest Investor Movement Index (IMX) is out.

For instance, when the IMX score surges, it means investors' recent past activity has tended to a bullish stance. When the score declines, investors' recent past activity has, by and large, tended towards bearishness.

TD Ameritrade’s Managing Director of Trading, Nicole Sherrod, shared a look into what the firm’s clients did over May.

Net Moves In May

It seems like TD Ameritrade’s customers were net buyers of equities in the fifth month of the year. In fact, the index registered its largest single-month increase of all time in May, surging by 10.43 percent, to 4.87.

As explained by the firm’s report, “rising volatility of some of the more widely held positions paired with relatively stable market conditions further increased the IMX. Net buying in some of those same widely held names whose relative volatility rose also had a compounding effect on the IMX score, resulting in the largest increase in the score since reporting began."

Among individual stocks, TD Ameritrade’s note highlighted a few, well-known names that experienced some price pressure over the month of May. Among these stocks, which were net buys among the firm’s in May were Apple Inc. AAPL and Netflix, Inc. NFLX, both of which rebounded toward the end of the month, but also Starbucks Corporation SBUX, which saw more clients buying that selling its stock.

Facebook Inc FB, which has hit all-time highs this year, was also net buy.

Other stocks popular among buyers were Twitter Inc TWTR, Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD and Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc VRX, Sherrod assured.

On the other hand, some stocks that saw net selling were Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM and Halliburton Company HAL, which rebounded along with oil prices, as well as Bank of America Corp BAC, Paypal Holdings Inc PYPL, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA and Chevron Corporation CVX.