BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- Put down the 10-K filings and the stock screeners. It's time to take a break from the traditional methods of generating investment ideas. Instead, let the crowd do it for you.
From hedge funds to individual investors, scores of market participants are turning to social media to figure out which stocks are worth watching. It's a concept that's known as "crowdsourcing," and it uses the masses to identify emerging trends in the market.
Crowdsourcing has long been a popular tool for the advertising industry, but it also makes a lot of sense as an investment tool. After all, the market is completely driven by the supply and demand, so it can be valuable to see what names are trending among the crowd.
While some fund managers are already trying to leverage social media resources like Twitter to find algorithmic trading opportunities, for most investors, crowdsourcing works best as a starting point for investors who want a starting point in their analysis. Today, we'll leverage the power of the crowd to take a look at some of the most active stocks on the market today.
These "most active" names are the most heavily-traded names on the market -- and often, uber-active names have some sort of a technical or fundamental catalyst driving investors' attention on shares. That's especially true now that earnings season is officially underway. And when there's a big catalyst, there's often a trading opportunity.
Without further ado, here's a look at today's stocks.
Zynga
Nearest Resistance: $4.60
Nearest Support: $3.80
Catalyst: Earnings, Acquisition News
Shares of social video game company Zynga (ZNGA) are up 17% as I write this afternoon, rallying hard after gapping up on earnings and acquisition news. Zynga reported a loss of 3 cents per share, a number that's still a full cent better than the 4-penny loss that Wall Street was anticipating. ZNGA also announced that it would be acquiring NaturalMotion for $527 million, a move that puts successful game titles in Zynga's portfolio and gives the firm access to NaturalMotion's gaming engine.
The buying is good news for ZNGA shareholders, but it frankly doesn't change much from a technical standpoint. ZNGA is still trading in a price channel -- today's move just swatted it higher from support. Look out for resistance to come into play at $4.60.
Microsoft
Nearest Resistance: $39
Nearest Support: $335
Catalyst: CEO Rumors
Microsoft (MSFT) is seeing modest upside today, buoyed by rumors that the board is moving to solve the leadership vacuum created by the retirement of long-time CEO Steve Ballmer. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's head of cloud computing, is the presumed replacement. Wall Street's reaction appears to be positive, a fact that should help Microsoft's board finalize their decision.
Technically, Microsoft's chart doesn't look much different from Zynga's -- both stocks are trading within a wide long-term trend channel. While the ideal time to buy MSFT comes on a move off of support, there are worse times than now to jump into shares.
JDS Uniphase
Nearest Resistance: $15
Nearest Support: $13
Catalyst: Earnings
$3 billion communications company JDS Uniphase (JDSU) may be on the small side of the spectrum in terms of market capitalization, but it's seeing some huge volumes today as a result of positive earnings. JDSU earned 4 cents per share for the quarter, beating the breakeven numbers that management reported last year.
Technically, today's price action is breaking shares out above a double bottom pattern that's held JDSU lower for the last two months. That means we have a buy signal in shares today -- just watch out for resistance at $15.
To see these stocks in action, check out the at Most-Active Stocks portfolio on Stockpickr.
-- Written by Jonas Elmerraji in Baltimore.
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At the time of publication, author had no positions in stocks mentioned.
Jonas Elmerraji, CMT, is a senior market analyst at Agora Financial in Baltimore and a contributor to TheStreet. Before that, he managed a portfolio of stocks for an investment advisory returned 15% in 2008. He has been featured in Forbes , Investor's Business Daily, and on CNBC.com. Jonas holds a degree in financial economics from UMBC and the Chartered Market Technician designation.
Follow Jonas on Twitter @JonasElmerraji
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