Monday and Wednesday expiration dates available for some stock options

Nasdaq has expanded its Short Term Option Series (STO) program by adding Monday and Wednesday expirations for several of the market’s most actively traded names. The new additions to the STO lineup include Alphabet (GOOG and GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Broadcom (AVGO), iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA). Traders can typically expect up to two weeks’ worth of Monday and Wednesday expirations to be listed at any given time. However, these midweek contracts may be withheld if a company’s earnings release falls near the expiration date. For example, …

tastytrade has no ETA on a resolving an issue that has customers trading blindly again

tastytrade is experiencing an issue that has effectively left customers trading blindly, unable to see all of their orders or positions. If this sounds familiar, it’s because tastytrade customers experienced the same issue less than two months ago. If you’re thinking, “Hey, wait. It wasn’t that long ago,” that was actually a different type of outage that happened about two weeks ago. For this round of issues at tastytrade, upon placing an order, the typical confirmation message isn’t displayed on the customer’s screen, and no email confirmation is received. The different Activity pages (Orders and Transactions) …

The Backdoor Roth and Mega Backdoor Roth

The Backdoor Roth and Mega Backdoor Roth are maneuvers designed to maximize the amount that you can contribute to your retirement accounts. Both strategies involve contributing post-tax/after-tax dollars to your IRA or 401(k), and then converting those dollars to a Roth account. The key difference in the two is that the Backdoor Roth happens inside of an IRA and the Mega Backdoor Roth happens inside of a 401(k). However, for the Mega Backdoor Roth, there may be instances where the 401(k) plan would allow for a rollover to an IRA. When performing a Mega Backdoor Roth, …

The dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been ordered by the agency’s acting director, Russell Vought, to halt to all supervision, examination activities, and enforcement actions. In addition, employees have been told to work remotely as the CFPB’s DC headquarters will be closed through February 14, 2025. Strategic Chaos With this strategically occurring rapidly over the course of a weekend, and with employees being instructed to not make public comments, there was confusion regarding the agency’s ability to take action on complaints against businesses. We spoke with The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on February 10, 2025 and …

Wysh notifies customers that they will close all savings accounts in less than two weeks

Wysh emailed its Savings+ accountholders to announce that their savings accounts would be closed due to the company no longer offering the product. We created our Savings+ account to allow us to provide microlife insurance to a new group of users. Thank you for your interest in Wysh Savings+, but we have made the difficult decision to stop offering Savings+ and all Savings+ accounts will be closing. In the email, Wysh also explained what customers can expect in the next few weeks. “You can utilize your Wysh Savings+ bank account as normal and access your funds …

What the Equifax data breach class action suit revealed about class action suits

The class action lawsuit against Equifax for its customer data security breach is “the largest and most comprehensive recovery in a data breach case in U.S. history,” as proclaimed by the Eleventh Circuit, which oversaw the case. After Equifax revealed its data privacy breach in 2017, over 300 separate class action lawsuits were filed against the company. These cases were consolidated in the Northern District of Georgia, where Plaintiffs and Equifax ultimately reached a settlement. The data breach compromised their name, birthdate, and Social Security number for over 147 million people. The effects of such a …

Ghost Pepper? Has Pepper, the discount gift card app, burned out?

Usually, I’d wait until after a fintech has officially died before using its silly name against it. But, I couldn’t wait. Each day, it seems as though Pepper posts what some would consider useless deals. It’s making some wonder if the app has finally died. The deals have certainly fizzled. Some suggested that the once-sizzling deals caused Pepper to burn through their seed money. Perhaps Pepper’s deals were too hot and they had to cool things down. Some customers have even reported being ghosted by Pepper. I, for one, am still waiting on a response after more …

How tastytrade can eat profits & affect trading behavior of active traders

Investment brokerage tastytrade has enticing promotional offers. But, it’s important to consider how much these offers will actually cost you to use tastytrade. Margin Interest Rates For starters, their lowest margin rate is 8% if you have a $1 million margin debit balance. That rate is more than one percentage point higher than some brokers’ lowest rates. That means that your $1 million margin balance would cost you $10,000 more a year at tastytrade. Don’t have a million dollar account? Maybe you’re an active day trader with Pattern Day Trader status. You’re required to maintain a …

E*TRADE is offering select customers a $250 checking account bonus

Some E*TRADE customers have received an email offering a $250 bonus for opening a new Morgan Stanley Private Bank (MSPB) checking account. Morgan Stanley Private Bank and E*TRADE are both owned by Morgan Stanley. The offer is not available to anyone who’s had a Morgan Stanley Private Bank Checking or Max-Rate Checking account within the past 12 months, and only accounts opened between 11/12/2024 and 12/15/2024 qualify for the offer. As long as you can meet the direct deposit requirements, the bonus is super easy! Here’s How to Get Your $250 Sign up for a …