IBM Trading Volume Soars 99.9% on Earnings Anticipation Climbs to 72nd in U.S. Market Activity

On September 19, 2025, IBM closed with a 0.53% gain, trading at $153.82 per share. The stock saw a surge in liquidity, with a trading volume of 2.62 billion, marking a 99.92% increase from the previous day. This performance positioned IBM as the 72nd most actively traded equity in the U.S. market, reflecting heightened investor interest ahead of its upcoming earnings report and strategic updates.

The move followed a broader market rally in AI infrastructure stocks, with IBM benefiting from renewed focus on its hybrid cloud and AI integration initiatives. Analysts noted that recent client acquisitions and partnerships in enterprise AI solutions have reinforced market confidence. However, short-term volatility remains tied to macroeconomic data releases and sector-specific earnings cycles.

To run this back-test accurately I need to pin down a few practical details about the trading rule and the investment universe. Could you confirm (or adjust) the following points? 1. Universe • Should we include all common stocks listed on NYSE + NASDAQ (≈6 000 names) or a narrower list such as the current S&P 1500 constituents? 2. Entry & exit price • Buy at today’s close and sell at tomorrow’s close (close-to-close return), or buy at tomorrow’s open and sell at tomorrow’s close (close-to-next-day-open return)? 3. Weighting of the basket • Equal-weight each of the 500 names, or weight by their dollar volume / market-cap? 4. Transaction costs / slippage • Ignore them for this exercise, or apply a per-trade cost (e.g., 2 bps per leg)? 5. Risk controls • None (pure 1-day hold), or would you like an automatic stop-loss/take-profit overlay? Once I have these confirmations I can generate the data-retrieval plan and launch the back-test.