The March IMX Reveals Investors Are Rolling With The Punches

Another month of heightened volatility and widespread uncertainty led to a 12.3 percent drop in TD Ameritrade's Investor Movement Index (IMX), which incorporates monthly investment and sentiment data from TDA clients to create a broad picture of retail investor activity. The index now sits at 5.22, a 32-month low.

This low marks the third consecutive drop in the index. Despite the dip, TD Ameritrade investors remained net buyers of equity in March, taking advantage of oversold names in tech as well as companies in industries that stand to feel the impact of the proposed tariffs.

Buy The Dip Is Alive And Well...

Amid its user data scandal that wiped out more than 15 percent of Facebook Inc FB equity, while also taking out a healthy chunk from many other Nasdaq components, TD Ameritrade investors saw the silver lining in the downturn: market leaders were on discount. Most telling of this optimistic tack is that both Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Netflix, Inc. NFLX were net buys among TDA investors despite each falling 15 percent from their March highs in sympathy with Facebook.

TDA investors took a similar approach with companies specifically impacted by tariff proposals from President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping that plagued the entire market for the last half of the month.

Among those names that TD Ameritrade clients added to their portfolios were industrial giants like General Electric Company GE and Boeing Co BA, which is 6 percent off its March high on fear of a trade war impacting its foreign contracts. Ford Motor Company F was also a net-purchase after it fell about 5 percent from its month-high on fears of retaliatory Tariffs aimed at domestic automakers.

Among other names that saw investor attention in March were Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM, which benefited from a sudden rally in oil prices, and Canadian pharmaceutical company Cronos Group Inc CRON.

...For The Most Part

Of course, not all the stocks that sold off in March's ides found buyers willing to weather the short-term volatility. Facebook is the clearest case where the long-term uncertainty turned off TDA investors, who sold the social platform as quickly as the platform sold off user data.

Wynn Resorts WYNN also found many of its shares among TDA clients on the auction block following the departure of defamed company founder Steve Wynn.

Other net-sellers with less Homeric overtones in the company dynamics included ConocoPhillips COP and Western Digital Corp WDC, which both saw profit taking after hitting new highs in the month, as well as Ormat Technologies ORA. Last month's IMX also indicated United Continental Holdings Inc UAL as a net sell among the brokerage's clients, due in part to possible weakness among the airliners.