The IMX Score Rebounded In December, Demonstrating Growing Optimism Around Economic Recovery

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

TD Ameritrade’s Investor Movement Index (IMX) — a monthly behavior-based index that indicates the attitude of retail investors — rebounded in the month of December, reaching the highest point in almost three years.

The IMX increased to 6.26 in December, up 15.71% from its November score of 5.41. The index goes up when clients are net buyers and goes down when clients are net sellers. 

During the month of December, clients were net buyers overall and were net buyers of equities.

“To cap off a tumultuous year, the positive headlines in December offered an opportunity for TD Ameritrade clients to increase their exposure to the markets,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. 

One such headline that increased exposure was the growing optimism among investors that Congress would pass a much-needed second stimulus package. This promising update came after months of prolonged negotiations within the White House.

Positive vaccine news also came through as a key FDA advisory panel recommended broad distribution of the first COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S, which resulted in the FDA granting emergency authorization to two vaccines.

What TD Ameritrade Clients Bought And Sold

TD Ameritrade clients bought some familiar names during the month of December. Some of these stocks included Pfizer Inc. PFE, Moderna Inc MRNA, NIO Inc NIO, Tesla Inc TSLA, and salesforce.com, inc. CRM.

And while clients were net buyers of equities overall, some popular company names that clients sold during the period were Slack Technologies Inc WORK, Fastly Inc FSLY, Occidental Petroleum Corporation OXY, Haliburton Company HAL, and Twitter Inc TWTR.

"There’s no question that the final trading period of the year reflected a growing sense of optimism around economic recovery and hope for an end to the pandemic. In 2021, however, the pandemic will most likely continue as the No. 1 news story for at least the first half of the year and with that, it will most likely remain the greatest source of market volatility,” said Kinahan.

Photo by Patrick Weissenberger on Unsplash

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.