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Momentum trading is a type of short-term, high-risk trading strategy that requires a lot of skill and practice. While momentum trades can be held for longer periods when trends continue, the term generally refers to trades that are held for a day or several days, on average.

Momentum traders strive to chase the market by identifying the trend in price action of a specific security and extract profit by predicting its near-term future movement.

Looking for a good entry point when prices fall and then determining a profitable exit point when prices become overbought is the method to momentum trading madness. Momentum trading can also involve using various short strategies to profit from market downturns.

In a sense, this kind of trading is that simple. But of course, things can be much more difficult in practice. If it were easy, then everyone would do it.

The fact of the matter is this—the vast majority of individuals who attempt short-term trading strategies like this are not successful.

History of Momentum Trading

Momentum trading is a relatively new phenomenon. This kind of trading style has been made much more readily accessible with modern technology that makes trading easier in general.

An investor named Richard Driehaus has sometimes been referred to as “the father of momentum trading.” His strategy was at odds with the old stock market mantra of “buy low, sell high.”

Driehaus theorized that more money could be made by buying high and then selling at even higher prices. This idea aligns with the overarching theme of following a trend.

During the late 2000s as computers got faster, many different varieties of this type of trading began to spring up. Some of them were driven by computer models, sometimes trading on very small timeframes.

High-frequency trading algorithms, for example, can execute hundreds of trades per second. With this type of trading, humans don’t actually do anything beyond managing the system. It’s believed that about 90% of all trades that occur on Wall Street today are executed by high-frequency trading bots.

Momentum trading has become more popular in recent years with the advent of digital brokerage accounts. There have also been a number of new investment vehicles created that are well-suited to this style of trading, such as certain exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Ever since the widespread elimination of many commission fees back in Q4 2019, it’s possible that even more retail investors might be inclined to try their hand at momentum trading. Transaction costs and brokerage fees were also a very big disadvantage for short-term traders, as the fees could reduce profits by a wide margin.

Why are some people interested in this kind of trading? The answer is simple.

While the risks are high, so are the potential rewards.

How Momentum Trading Works

In essence, momentum trading involves picking a security (such as a stock or ETF), identifying a trend, and then executing a plan to capitalize on the trend based on the assumption that it will continue in the near-term.

There are many things that can be taken into consideration to this end. Among these are factors like volatility, volume, time, and technical indicators.

Volatility

Volatility refers to the size and frequency of price changes in a particular asset. Short-term traders tend to like volatility because wild market swings can create opportunities for large profits in short amounts of time. Of course, volatility also increases risk. In fact, one of the biggest indications that an asset has high risk is often that it has high volatility.

Recommended: Understanding Stock Volatility

Volume

Volume represents the quantity of units of a particular asset being sold and bought during a certain period (e.g., the number of shares of a stock or ETF). Traders need assets with adequate volume to keep their trades profitable. Without enough volume, traders can fall victim to something known as slippage.

Slippage occurs when there aren’t enough shares being sold at a trader’s price point to fulfill the order all at once. A trade then winds up being executed across multiple orders, each of them being slightly lower than the last, resulting in a smaller profit overall. When volume is high enough, this won’t happen, as most orders can be filled all at once at a single price point.

Time Frame

Having a plan is part of what separates successful traders from unsuccessful ones. As discussed, momentum trading usually takes place on a short time-frame, although not always as short as some day trading strategies. While day traders might hold a position for hours or even minutes, momentum traders might hold positions for a day, several days, or longer.

Technical Indicators

Technical analysis is the art of trying to predict future price movements by analyzing charts. Charting software provides traders with a long list of tools that use different mathematical formulas to indicate how the price of an asset has performed in a specific timeframe. These tools are referred to as technical indicators.

Based on one or more of these indicators, traders try to infer what the near future holds for a security. This process is far from perfect, and technical analysis might best be described as only slightly predictive. Still, it’s an important part of a short-term trader’s arsenal. What do these indicators look like?

One of the simplest technical indicators is called the Relative Strength Index (RSI). This indicator is supposed to chart the recent strength of a stock based on closing prices during a given period.

The RSI provides a simple numerical value on a scale from 0–100. The higher the value, the more overbought a security might be, while a lower value indicates a security might be oversold. In other words, a low RSI can be a buy signal, while a high RSI can be a sell signal.

The topic of technical analysis goes far beyond the scope of what can be covered here in this article. For a more detailed look at the subject, take a look at this SoFi resource.

Advantages of Momentum Trading

The main advantage of momentum trading is that it can be profitable in a relatively short amount of time when executed correctly and consistently.

Whereas buy-and-hold investors tend to wait months, years, or even decades before seeing significant profits, successful momentum traders have the potential to turn out profits on a weekly or daily basis.

While investing for the long-term requires a good understanding of the fundamental factors that go into each investment, momentum trading tends to be focused around technical analysis of charts.

While this method of trying to predict price movements is by no means infallible, it does keep things simple. Traders are focused through a single lens rather than trying to comprehend the bigger picture.

In this sense, momentum trading may be simpler. But compared to long-term investing, short-term trading involves a lot more buying and selling, and that creates additional opportunities to make mistakes.

Disadvantages of Momentum Trading

As mentioned, there are a lot of risks involved in momentum trading. Momentum traders try to make inferences about future price movement based on the recent actions of other market participants. This can work, but it can also be thrown off balance completely by a single press release or fundamental development.

For example, imagine a momentum trader identifies a strong upward trend in a stock of a telecommunications company we will call Company A.

This imaginary trader develops a plan and begins executing it, placing a buy order at a select price point when the stock dips. The plan is to sell once the stock reaches a long-term resistance level that was established months ago, let’s say.

Our hypothetical trader has done this same trade before many times and made a nice profit each time, so she thinks this time will be no different.

But then something unexpected happens. The next trading day, when profits were to be booked on a continued rising price trend, a rival telecommunications company, Company B, issues a press release.

Company B has pulled ahead of Company A, implementing a new technology that will benefit customers greatly. As a result, investors begin selling stock in company A, expecting them to lose customers to competitors like Company B.

In this imaginary case, any trends that might have been identified using technical analysis would have been invalidated quickly. Hypothetical scenarios like this play out every day in the real markets.

Tax Implications to Know

Those interested in momentum trading or other short-term trading strategies may want to review the tax implications associated with this style of trading. It can be worth reviewing how taxes will impact an investor, since they could take a chunk of an investor’s profits.

Know that the IRS makes a distinction between traders and investors, for tax purposes, and it’s important to understand where you fall. A trader is someone considered by law to be in the investment business while an investor is someone buying and selling securities for personal gain.

The IRS also differentiations between short-term and long-term investments when evaluating capital gains and losses. In general, long-term investments are those held for a year or more, while those held for less than a year are considered short-term investments. Long-term investments may benefit from a lower tax rate, while short-term capital gains are taxed at the same rate as ordinary income.

Another rule worth understanding is the wash sale rule . While some capital losses can be taken as a tax deduction, there are certain regulations in place to stop investors from taking advantage of this benefit. The wash sale rule restricts investors from benefiting from selling a security at a loss and then buying a substantially identical security within 30 days. A wash sale occurs if you sell a security and then your spouse or a corporation under our control buys a similar security within the 30 day period following the sale.

Investing With SoFi

Now you have some answers to the question, “what is momentum trading?”

In short, it involves a combination of techniques that attempt to predict and take advantage of short-term market fluctuations. This skill is hard to master, requires a lot of knowledge and experience, and carries high risk. This kind of trading is not for everyone.

No matter what kind of trading you’re into, the SoFi Invest® provides all the tools needed to get started.

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The information provided is not meant to provide investment or financial advice. Investment decisions should be based on an individual’s specific financial needs, goals and risk profile. SoFi can’t guarantee future financial performance. Advisory services offered through SoFi Wealth, LLC. SoFi Securities, LLC, member FINRA / SIPC . The umbrella term “SoFi Invest” refers to the three investment and trading platforms operated by Social Finance, Inc. and its affiliates (described below). Individual customer accounts may be subject to the terms applicable to one or more of the platforms below.
Tax Information: This article provides general background information only and is not intended to serve as legal or tax advice or as a substitute for legal counsel. You should consult your own attorney and/or tax advisor if you have a question requiring legal or tax advice.

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The finance world is chock full of strange terminology. “Gamma squeeze” is a perfect example.

In general, when there’s a “squeeze” in the market, that usually describes an event when investors feel pressure to make a move that they otherwise would not have made. For instance, in “short squeezes,” investors who made bearish bets on a stock–known as short sellers–are forced to buy shares of the stock they’ve actually bet against.

This piece will dig into what a gamma squeeze is, what it has to do with options trading, and what it means for investors.

Overview of Options Trading

It’ll be helpful if we quickly recap how options trading works. Options can be bought and sold, just like stocks. In short, they’re contracts that give purchasers the right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell an asset—i.e., the option to transact.

Options can be used to speculate on price changes. For example, if an investor thinks the price of a stock is going to increase, they can purchase an options contract to put themselves in a position to profit if their prediction were to come true.

There are call and put options to take into account. A call gives purchasers the right to buy an asset at a certain time or price, whereas a put gives them the right to sell it. Buying these types of options allows them to effectively bet on a stock, without outright owning it. Purchasers typically pay a small “premium,” or the price of the contract.

Generally, if an investor thinks a stock’s price will increase, they buy calls. If they think it will decrease, they buy puts.

Recommended: Options Trading Terminology

Gamma Squeeze Definition

A gamma squeeze has to do with buying call options. Remember, purchasers buy calls when they think the price of a stock is going to increase. And as the price of that stock increases, so does the value of the call option. Now, when a stock’s price starts to increase, that can lead to more investors buying calls contracts. There’s a whole lot of call-buying going on.

But on the other side of those calls are the traders or institutions that sold them—remember that options are a contract between two parties, so for an investor betting on a stock price’s increase, there’s another that’s betting that it’ll fall. They’re taking a “short” position, in other words.

“Market makers”–the trading firms that are selling the call options–are typically the party on the other side of the trade. They’re essentially “short” those call options that investors in the market are buying. These market makers face a good amount of risk if the price of the underlying stock rises, so they will buy some shares of the stock to hedge some of that risk.

Buying the shares also helps to ensure that they will be able to deliver the stock if they become “due,” or the investor exercises their call options.

However, if investors keep buying more and more calls, and the stock’s price increases, market makers need to buy more and more stock—increasing its price even further, and thus, creating a “squeeze.” The gains in share value cause the market makers to be more exposed, hence they need to hedge even more.

Part of this is also because the stock’s gains brings the options closer to the prices at which calls can be exercised.

Basically, the short positions held by some investors allows a gamma squeeze to happen. And if a stock’s price rises instead of falls, the shorters’ need to start buying the stock, further increasing its price, creating the feedback loop mentioned earlier.

Recommended: Shorting a Stock Explained

What’s Gamma in Options?

Okay, so you may have a grasp on how a gamma squeeze can occur. But we still need to talk about what gamma is, and how it fits into the picture.

Gamma is actually just one of a handful of Greek letters (gamma, delta, theta, and vega) that options traders use to refer to their positions. In a nutshell, “the Greeks” help traders determine if they’re in a good position or not.

For now, we’ll just focus on delta and gamma. Gamma is actually determined by delta. Delta measures the change of an option’s price relative to the change in the underlying stock’s price. For instance, a delta of 0.3 would mean that the option’s price would go up $0.30 for every $1 increase in the underlying stock’s price.

Gamma measures how delta changes based on a stock price’s change. It’s sort of a delta of deltas. In other words, gamma can tell you how much an option’s delta will change when the underlying stock’s price changes. Another way to think of it: If an option is a car, its delta is its speed. Its gamma, then, is its rate of acceleration.

When a gamma squeeze occurs, delta and gamma on options are in a state of flux, creating stock volatility and ultimately, squeezing some market players.

The Takeaway

When investors are making bullish bets on a stock, sometimes they use call options–contracts that allow them to buy a stock at a certain date in the future.

When brokers or market makers sell those call options to the investors, they buy shares of the underlying stock itself in order to try to offset the risk they’re exposing themselves to. This also helps them ensure they can deliver the shares if the options get exercised by the investor holding the call options.

Gamma squeezes occur when there’s rapid buying by the market makers of the stock, causing a dramatic surge in the share price. The sudden increase, in turn, causes greater exposure for the market makers, causing them to hedge themselves more by purchasing additional shares.

Options trading is complex and may not be for everyone. But if you want a simpler investing experience, then an online investing account with SoFi may be a good choice. SoFi Invest allows investors to buy and sell stocks, ETFs and fractional shares without commissions. Users can also start building a portfolio with as little as $5 on the Active Investing platform.

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Options involve risks, including substantial risk of loss and the possibility an investor may lose the entire amount invested in a short period of time. Before an investor begins trading options they should familiarize themselves with the Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options . Tax considerations with options transactions are unique, investors should consult with their tax advisor to understand the impact to their taxes.
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