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noninstitutional

30 Oct: Bitcoin / Crypto

Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency. There are no physical bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to. All bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power. Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor are individual bitcoins valuable as a commodity. Despite it not being legal tender, Bitcoin is very popular and has triggered the launch of hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, collectively referred to as altcoins. Bitcoin is commonly abbreviated as “BTC.”

30 Oct: VIX Weekly

The CBOE Volatility Index, or “VIX”, is a real-time market index representing the market’s expectations for volatility over the coming 30 days. Investors use the VIX to measure the level of risk, fear, or stress in the market when making investment decisions. Traders can also trade the VIX using a variety of options and exchange-traded products, or use VIX values to price derivatives.

Stock market indexes concept: S&P 500 on Digital Data Paper background

30 Oct: SP500 Weekly

The S&P 500 Index, or the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 500 largest publicly-traded companies in the U.S. It is not an exact list of the top 500 U.S. companies by market capitalization because there are other criteria to be included in the index. The index is widely regarded as the best gauge of large-cap U.S. equities.

30 Oct: XLK Weekly

XLK includes market segments like IT services, wireless telecommunication services, and semiconductors to name just a few. The fund invests in the who’s-who of the U.S. tech sector, with major holdings in companies like Apple and IBM. The fund splits its assets mainly between the technology and communication services sectors, while allocating mainly to giant and large cap firms. One of the major strengths of this ETF is the fact that it does not single out a particular sector; rather it invests in companies from all across the technology sector.

30 Oct: IWM

IWM ETF is one of several offering exposure to the Russell 2000 Index, a widely followed measure of small cap U.S. stocks. Given this investment objective, IWM may be useful in a number of different ways; more active investors may use this fund as a way to establish short-term exposure to a risky asset class when risk tolerance is expected to climb, while IWM can also be appealing as a way of accessing an asset class that should be included in any long-term, buy-and-hold portfolio.