Last "quadruple witching" day of 2021 in the U.S. market is coming ahead. It's expected to be the largest one in volume of this year, which has rattled many investors and traders.
The quadruple witching hour is the last hour of the trading session on the quadruple witching day when options and futures on indexes and equities expire, Friday.
What is quadruple witching?
Quadruple witching refers to four days when four different financial asset contracts expire in a calendar year.
The days are the third Friday of March, June, September and December. The assets on which the contracts expire on that day are stock options, single stock futures, stock index futures and stock index options. Options contracts also expire monthly. Futures contracts expire quarterly.
Why it matters
Because all four types of contracts expire on the same day, the quadruple witching day usually sees a heavier volume of trading, which will cause market chaos.
Part of the reason for the increase in market transaction volume is the automatic offsetting transactions. Volume on quadruple witching days has increased roughly two-thirds of the time since 2005.
Put it simply, on the negative side, history suggests that returns haven’t improved significantly. Volatility may bring gains or huge losses.
The positive impact on the market that day is that arbitrage trading brings profit opportunities. Active trading, that is, an increase in trading volume, may cause the market to rise.
The $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ dropped 0.06%, 1.31%, and 0.91% on Mar 19, June 18, and Sep 17respectively according to historical data of other three quadruple witching days this year.
How to Invest during quadruple witching day? To learn more about stock options and how to hedge the position through options, you might like this course:
Snapshot of the benefits and risks of options trading:
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$Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US)$ $Nasdaq Composite Index(.IXIC.US)$

Technology stocks are specifically coming under pressure today. The NASDAQ composite down about 2% to unwind most of its gains from yesterday. And the heavily-weighted index component $Apple(AAPL.US)$ is one of the major decliners. We're seeing those shares down more than 3.2% this afternoon after an almost 3% jump yesterday. And we're still on watch for Apple to hit that $3 trillion mark on its market capitalization after hitting a record intraday high just earlier this week on Monday.
It looks like that new milestone may not be coming today, given this stock drop, and since we would need to see $Apple(AAPL.US)$ shares hit that magic number of $182.85 to hit that $3 trillion valuation.
But other software stocks are also coming under pressure this afternoon. Adobe shares are down after the company projected first quarter and full-year revenue that missed Wall Street's expectations. It's also been trailing the broader market so far this year to date, as investors have continued to rotate away from tech and growth names.
Meanwhile, $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$ which had been one of the big leaders in the tech and semiconductor space this year, also unwinding gains for the year to date today, down about 6% after doubling so far this year.
Now, interestingly enough, all of these moves lower in tech names are coming even as we're seeing Treasury yields mostly moving lower. The benchmark 10-year yield is down just about 4 basis points here, trading above 1.4%, or rather yielding above 1.4%. And usually when we see a move lower in yields, we do tend to see a move higher in tech stocks. Clearly not what we're seeing today, although we did have a market move higher in Treasury yields yesterday immediately following the Fed decision.
We can also see these tech names getting hit on a sector basis in the S&P 500, where information technology and consumer discretionary sectors are the laggards, whereas the cyclical energy, financials, and materials sectors are outperforming.
And finally, guys, do want to note that we're seeing a bigger risk-on move in other asset classes this afternoon, specifically West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices are moving higher by more than 2% to trade above that $72 a barrel mark. And Bitcoin is also extending yesterday's gains post-Fed decision to rise above $48,000. Guys?

As an investor, sometimes doing alot of research can be a two-edged sword. For one, there are too many info from different analysts differing in opinions. Two, the earnings results does not necessarily drive the stock price upwards. Hence, I tend to procrastinate on whether to buy now or later and to sell now or later. At times i regretted not selling at the high price and selling too fast, then the stock price shoot up 10x more.
1) Most of my trades are at losses due to the wrong timing of buying and selling because of my procrastination.
2) I think I should listen more to my gut feeling and sell or buy the stocks which prove to be right.
3) Holding on to $Apple(AAPL.US)$  and wait for appreciation. Selling $BlackBerry(BB.US)$ at the right time.
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