Shawn is responsible for overseeing the thinkpipes® trading platform and research related to financial markets and market structure. He is also a regular contributor to shows on TD Ameritrade Network, media affiliate of TD Ameritrade, including Morning Trade Live and Market On Close. He has been with TD Ameritrade since 2011 and held positions in Client Services and with TradeWise Advisors, an option-based trade advisory and separate but affiliated company under TD Ameritrade.
Cruz graduated from Illinois State University with a BBA in finance and economics and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business with concentrations in analytic finance, finance, and economics. He holds Series 7, Series 63, and Series 66 industry licenses.
Before attending Illinois State, he served as an infantryman in the United States Marines Corps.
The monthly U.S. Employment Situation report—commonly called the jobs report—is perhaps the most closely watched fundamental indicator for traders and investors. Here’s why.
Large caps might get a lot of attention, but small-cap stocks are still a popular investment subset. And it’s important to track them separately from their larger siblings. Learn about small-cap stocks and the Russell 2000 Index.
Use alerts to monitor individual securities as well as your portfolio performance. Here's how.
Learn the thinkorswim platform's Order Entry tool and how multi-leg trades, or option spreads, can make sense for qualified traders during earnings season.
What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)? It’s a price-weighted index of 30 large stocks, and it’s considered one of the major U.S. equity benchmarks.
Learn how economic growth, inflation and interest rates link to the consumer price index and how the CPI, sometimes called the inflation index, affects the stock market as well as depicts the price of goods and services.
Should a long-term investor ever consider a radical shift in their investing approach, or is a gradual evolution better? Is the grass really greener?
Learn the different types of inflation, whether higher inflation may be coming, and how it might affect you.
Some investors draw parallels between the Nasdaq Composite index now versus that of the late 1990s and early 2000, but there may be more to the story.
Long-term investors may be tempted to gloss over the minutiae, but the small print can often tell a company’s story. Learn some of the terms to know and why.
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