Word: profitability
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...with program trades in the stocks on the index, open up a variety of opportunities. One of the most popular takes advantage of momentary differences between the price of a futures contract and of the stocks themselves. When this spread is sufficiently wide, a trader can lock in a profit at no risk by, say, buying the futures and selling the underlying stocks. This practice, called index arbitrage, has been blamed for the sharply increased volatility of the market, though the point has never been conclusively proved. Indeed, some experts believe index arbitrage actually reduces volatility by helping the market...
...program trading called portfolio insurance. This is a defensive strategy designed to protect stock portfolios against market downturns. Rather than sell stocks as their prices are falling, portfolio insurers sell stock- index futures. If the decline persists, the futures can be repurchased at a lower level, yielding a substantial profit that will offset some of the loss sustained on the stocks. But traders who buy the futures hedge their positions by making computer-aided sales of the underlying stocks, driving the market down further. If computers did help accelerate the Black Monday slide, they were not responsible...
Some unexpected forces have interfered. One is that many foreign companies, determined to hold their U.S. market share, have postponed boosting their U.S. prices to compensate for the rise of their currencies against the dollar, even if it meant cutting into their profit margins. "The average foreign producer is probably selling at a loss right now," says Stephen Roach, a senior economist at the Morgan Stanley investment firm. Another factor is a reluctance among many U.S. businesses, which feel content with America as their main marketplace, to take advantage of the falling dollar to expand their sales abroad. Says Vladimir...
...average neared its peak of 2722. Trump, 41, had accordingly cashed in the bulk of his stock holdings, some $500 million worth of shares in Allegis, Holiday Inns, Bally Recreation and other companies. As Black Monday loomed for less fortunate investors, the tycoon claimed he had made a net profit of some $200 million. Now, Trump declared, he intended to "stay in cash for a while, see where the world is going...
Tony Cafazza, 46, owner of a St. Louis company that sells and services cash registers, rang up profits even as the crash began. Cafazza had sold his stock holdings during the previous three months, for a profit of $100,000. Then, in September, he bought so-called puts on General Motors -- options to sell the company's stock at a fixed price in the future. On the Friday before Black Monday, as GM stock nose-dived 4 7/8 points to close at 66, Cafazza cashed in his options, which soared in value because their set purchase price was higher than...