By this feature of my invention, the number of crossing policemen may at least be reduced, while at the same time the direction signs constitute division posts to separate oppositely moving streams of traffic in each line of travel.

— Ernest Sirrine

On Tuesday, Nov. 29, 1910, American inventor Ernest Sirrine received US Patent number 976,939 for his “Street Traffic System,” an early innovation in traffic signaling.

British engineer John P. Knight had previously implemented the world’s first known traffic signal in front of the Houses of Parliament in London in 1868. 

Sirrine’s patent, first implemented in Chicago, consisted of automatically controlled display arms that rotated on an axis, displaying the words “STOP” and “PROCEED” alternately.  

The rapid adoption of Henry Ford’s Model T auto, introduced in 1908, triggered a wave of advances in the field of traffic control, as the US Patent Office became a proving ground for different theories and designs, issuing over 60 patents for traffic control systems from 1910 through 1922.

Active Trader Sentiment

Week ending Nov. 26, 2021

~ Options data provided by Tradier, Inc. ~

Stock index futures are up Monday morning, as traders return to the market after the sharp sell-off in Friday’s shortened session. S&P 500 futures are up 1.2% as of 9:15am, as all eyes are on news of the latest COVID-19 variant called Omicron.

The Thanksgiving Day news of the emergence of Omicron weighed heavily on Friday’s action, sending major indexes down 2.2% to 2.5%, with travel-related stocks taking the worst of it as investors feared prospects of new variant-related global lockdowns.

For the week, the S&P 500 fell 2.3%, the Nasdaq Composite plunged 3.5%, Dow Industrials lost 2.0% and the Russell 2000 plummeted 4.2%.

The World Health Organization warned earlier today that Omicron’s risk of transmission is assessed as “very high” with a rate that is faster than what was seen in the Delta variant. The new strain is also more heavily mutated than any previously known COVID-19 variant.

Since first being detected in South Africa three weeks ago, cases have now been seen in multiple European countries, including the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

Canadian health officials also announced two cases on Sunday, and there have been reports of cases in Australia and Hong Kong.

What remains unknown is Omicron’s severity, though some in the market are clearly taking a bet this morning that it won’t be as deadly as initially feared.

With Omicron in the foreground, investors will still have numerous earnings reports to digest this week. Among the key reports expected are:

  • Tuesday: Salesforce (CRM), BHP (BHP), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Zscaler (ZS), Global Foundries (GFS), NetApp (NTAP), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
  • Wednesday: Royal Bank of Canada (RY), Snowflake (SNOW), Stellantis (STLA), Synopsys (SNPS), CrowdStrike (CRWD), Veeva (VEEV)
  • Thursday: Toronto Dominion Bank (TD), Marvell Technology (MRVL), CIBC (CM), Dollar General (DG), DocuSign (DOCU), Kroger (KR)
  • Friday: Bank of Montreal (BMO), RLX Technology (RLX)

Perusing last week’s single stock options activity from Tradier, Nvidia (NVDA) and Apple (AAPL) were prominent among bull traders. Nvidia set a new all-time high last Monday of $346.47. Even after pulling back the rest of the week, the stock has still posted a gain of over 140% year-to-date. Apple also set an all-time last week, hitting $165.70 on Monday. As of Friday’s close, Apple is up over 18% for 2021.

On the bear side of the ledger, Chewy (CHWY) and US Natural Gas Fund (UNG) led the most active names. The pet food and supplies retailer, due to report Q3 earnings next week, is down 23% year-to-date as the company and its peers have run into supply chain issues and labor shortages. Global natural gas prices hit record highs this summer but are projected to fall into 2022. UNG is designed to track the movements of natural gas prices.

 

Options activity, week ending Nov. 26, 2021. Source: Data from Tradier, table by Equities News

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Source: Equities News