Posts Tagged ‘etfs’

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Mastering Moving Average Crossover Secrets Can Be Highly Profitable

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

As a trader, you need to master the two technical indicators that are very simple to use but most effective. These are the trendlines and the moving averages. These two technical indicators can be used with a naked eye by just eyeballing the chart. They work for all markets. While calculating the moving averages, the time period used to calculate the average is very important. The shorter the time period, more fluctuations and whipsaw. What this means is the chances of getting wrong trading signals increase with shorted time periods.

There are three types of moving averages. In case of weighted and exponential moving averages, more weight is given to the recent prices as compared to the old ones making them more responsive to recent price action as compared to the simple moving averages. Simple averages are calculated by dividing all the prices with the number of time periods used to calculate the average.

On the other hand, longer time period averages move slowly with a smoother curve that can be slow in giving trading signals for entering into a long or short position. Now many traders use a combination of slow and fast moving averages in generating trading signals.

Most traders use the combination of three averages. When the short period average crosses the medium one, this gives a trading signal but this need to be confirmed. Confirmation is obtained when the short and the medium move above the longer period average. Futures traders use the combination like 4,9 and 18 period averages. Stock traders use longer periods like the 40 day, 100 day and 200 day to generate trading signals.

When using moving average crossovers as a technical indicator, when it is below, you should be short. And you should be long when the short average is above the longer period average.

Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) is based on these averages and is a powerful technical indicator in the trading arsenal of any trader. These crossovers between the three averages are an indication the momentum is shifting from one direction to another.

However, when trading with these crossovers, you should know this that these averages are lagging indicators. What this means is that they are giving a signal about the past price action something that has already taken place. These averages work very well in a trending market but do not work well in non trending or choppy markets.

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Profitable Candlestick Trend Confirming Patterns-Separating Lines And Bullish Thrusting Lines

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Suppose you want to sell the stock because you believe that the price is close to peaking. The appearance of a candlestick pattern showing the trend is still in place and is expected to continue may help you exit at a still more profitable price. Thrusting Lines Candlestick Pattern is one such trend confirming pattern.

There are as usual two types of thrusting lines candlestick patterns-bullish as well as bearish. Bullish thrusting lines candlestick pattern is a long bullish candle on the first day. The second day or what you call the signal day, it is a bearish candle with a gap opening with price higher than the high of the setup day. However, the close of the signal day should be above the midpoint of the setup day.

What this means is that on the first day, bulls had been in charge of the market. On the second day, bulls push a security to have a gap opening. This brings in some sellers but the bears are unable to push the price above the middle of the previous day. This means that bulls are still around and are poised to take control of the market again.

You can safely keep on riding the trend when you find this pattern. When a Thrusting Line Candlestick Pattern is formed, it means that the trend is going to continue in the future.

Now, Bullish Separating Lines is another important trend confirmation candlestick pattern that you should master. On the first day or what you call the setup day or what you call the first day, you will find a long bearish candle. This long bearish candle means that the bears have been in total control of the market for the day.

This is the feature that is used to identify the Separating Lines Pattern. On the signal day or the second day, you will find a bullish candle. This bullish candle has got an open that is equal to almost equal to the open of the first day or the setup day.

Now, the bulls are in total control of the market meaning that the uptrend will continue. On the second day, bulls start massive buying making the opening price equal to the opening price on the first day.

When these candlestick patterns appear on the chart, it means that the trend is going to continue. However, these patterns do not appear frequently and are somewhat rare. But whenever, they do make an appearance, they can be highly profitable if spotted correctly.

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Short Selling And Short Interest Ratios Shocking Secret

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Everyone wants to ride the rising tide in the stock market by buying stocks and later on selling them at a higher price to make a capital gain. However, can you make money when the tide in the stock market is going down? Yes, you can with short selling. In short selling, yo borrow a stock from your broker and sell it. Later on you buy it back at a much lower price and return it your broker making a good capital gain.

Short selling works if the price continues to fall. If the price does not fall or retraces after sometime, you can make a hefty loss on your short position. The loans that are taken in order to go short have to be repaid! If the lender asks them or the price goes up, the trader has to buy back shares in order to make the repayment. Now, the harder it becomes to get the right number of shares in the market, the more desperate the trader will become and the higher the prices can go.

Short selling in stocks is done by investors with the expectation of a making a capital gain when they expect that stock price to go down in the near future. Short selling is also done by the fund managers to hedge their stock portfolios. Now, in other markets like the currencies, futures or the options market, you don’t have to borrow the security in order to go short. You can straight away go short by selling that security or currency in the market.

In the case of stocks, you need to monitor the rate of short selling in order to gauge investor expectation as well as the future market direction. Now, NYSE and NASDAQ report the short interest in stocks listed with them. Now this data is released on monthly basis as the brokerage firms may need a while to report how many shares have been shorted and then report that data to the exchange.

Short Interest Ratio is very important for short sellers. Short Interest Ratio can give you important clues about other short sellers in the market. Too much short selling can only drive the stock price down.

Short Interest Ratio reports the number of shares of a particular stock that has been shorted, the percentage change from the previous months, the average daily volume for that stock in the same month and the number of days of trading at the average volume that it would take to cover the short positions.

The problem with Short Interest Ratio is that it is not calculated frequently. It is calculated on monthly basis. So, the trader cannot use it to gauge the short positions in the market on a daily or weekly basis. However, it can give you the general trend in the market. A high short interest ratio should make you nervous if you have taken a short position in that stock as most of the investors who are short will soon become desperate to dump that stock in the market and cover their short positions.

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Shocking Stocks Short Selling Facts!

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Short selling is one of the favorite day trading strategies employed by many day traders. Many companies hate short sellers as they believe that short sellers were responsible in the fall of their stock prices. Nothing can be far from the truth. Short selling is just like anyother market mechanism that provides liquidity and better price discovery. Short selling can never destroy a company if its’ fundamentals are strong. Many stock brokers now let you short stocks with just the click of a mouse. When you sell stocks from your online brokerage account, the message asks you whether you are selling your own shares or short selling. You just need to click once on short selling and the rest is taken care of by the broker. These shares are a loan to you by the broker that you will have to return at a later date!

In some cases, the brokerage firm cannot borrow the shares as so many people have sold the stock short that there are no more shares to borrow. In that case, you will have to find another stock or use another strategy.

Now, day traders are not fundamental traders. Day traders are simply interested in the daily volatility in the stock. Most even don’t do any financial or fundamental analysis of the companies whose stocks they are trading. Almost all are technicians or what you call technical analysis experts. Now, shorting is one of the favorite strategies employed by day traders. A day trader may short stock on the mundane reason like its price had been going up for three days and it’s time to come down!

In simple words, once the stock starts to move down, you cannot short it. You will have to wait for its price to move up on the last trade, before your short selling order can be executed by the broker. Now, you cannot straight away short a stock as there are mechanisms in place employed by msot of the stock exchanges that don’t want a massive shorting attack on a stock. There is the famous Uptick Rule that has been put in place to prevent that from happening. What the Uptick Rule means is that you cannot short a stock unless it moves up on the last trade. This rule has been placed to prevent a stock from being driven down to almost zero by short sellers.

If you are wrong in your short selling decision, your loss can be catastrophic.How much risky short selling can be? Well, in theory there is no stopping a stock price to reach the sky. But don’t worry, short sellers also use stop loss so if the price starts to move up, your position will get closed automatically by the stop loss order.

Now, don’t get caught in the market with short selling when good news spreads about the stock that you had shorted driving its price up. This is known as Short Squeeze. Once that happens, almost all short sellers get desperate to dump their stocks and exit but when they try to buy back the stock, they get more hurt as the prices go even higher and higher on rising demand for the stock in the market.

If you have already shorted that stock, you might get a call from your broker to return that stock immediately. In such a case, you will have to immediately return the stock even if it doesn’t make any sense to you!As said before, companies, investors and many brokers hate short sellers. They think that short sellers had intentionally driven down the stock prices. So sometimes, they will spread rumors of good news to create a momentary short squeeze. Sometimes, a campaign will be started by the owners of a particular stock instructing their brokers not to loan out their stocks to short sellers.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Turn $200 into $100K in just 3 months with this Penny Stock Trading FREE Report!Read this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading FREE Report plus the shocking Profit Button Report that applies no matter what you trade-stocks,forex, futures or options!

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Trading Interest Rate Futures And Knowing The Yield Curve

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Interest rates play a pivotal role in all financial markets. No matter what market you trade whether it is stocks, forex, futures, options, ETFs, commodities, bonds etc, you need to keep an eye on the interest rates. A yield curve is a representation on the graph that compares the entire spectrum on interest rates available to investors.

You will come across three types of shapes on the yield curve. The normal curve rises to the right and the short term interests are lower than the longer term interests. A normal yield curve represents normal economic activity where investors are being rewarded more for investing in longer term securities with a premium on longer term interest rates.

Now, most of the time you will come accross the Normal Yield Curve. But sometimes, you will find the Yield Curve to be Flat. When you find the Yield Curve to be Flat, it means that all the interest rates in the economy are equal. What this indicates is that economic activity is slowing down.

However, when the economy starts to go into a recession, you will suddenly find an Inverted Yield Curve. On an Inverted Yield Curve, the longer term interest rates are lower than the short term interest rates.What this mean is that the economy is slowing down and investors are reluctant to invest long term thinking it to be risky. An Inverted Yield Curve is a leading indicator of an economy doing down into a recession. When there is a financial crisis like that happened in the early part of 2008, you will find the Yield Curve to be Inverted. Investors are shying away from investing in long term projects in the economy.

If you want to trade interest rates short term than Eurodollars are the best instruments that you can trade. Eurodollars are well suited for small traders because of the low margin requirements. Eurodollars also tend to be less volatile and have a highly liquid market due to the large number of market participants. However, like any other futures contracts, Eurodollars position needs to be carefully monitored. Ten Year T Notes and T Bonds can be highly volatile. You can also trade options on these interest rates futures.

Now, when you trade these interest rate futures contracts, you need to keep an eye on the market constantly. Futures trading can be risky and in a matter of few minutes you might get wiped out in the market and get a margin call from your broker. Trading interest rate futures is no different than trading anyother futures contract. If you haven’t traded futures before, a good idea would be to first paper trade these contracts for at least two months so that you get a feel of how these futures contracts gets traded and how the market behaves!

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Candlestick Patterns- The Hanging Man, the Hammer and the Spinning Top!

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Hanging Man and the Hammer are two different candlestick patterns. The patterns are not identical. Hanging Man is considered to be bearish and the Hammer is considered to be bullish.

How to spot the Hanging Man and the Hammer? These candlestick patterns are easy to spot on the chart. When you spot a very small candle body accompanied by a pretty long wick on the bottom, it is a Hanging Man if it appears at the top of the uptrend and it is a Hammer if it appears at the bottom of the downtrend.

In less than ideal cases, you might also find a small wick at the top of the candlestick. When the Hanging Man or the Hammer appears, you need to look for the confirmation on the next day.

Now suppose, you think that you have spotted the Hanging Man in an uptrend. Wait for the confirmation the next day with the opening price. If the opening price on the next day is less than the previous day’s close, you have a true Hanging Man. If not, then that was not a true Hanging Man.

Similarly suppose, you think that you have correctly spotted the Hammer in a downtrend. A Hammer should have a very small candle body with a long wick at the bottom. You should confirm this with the opening price on the next day. If the opening price is higher than the closing price the previous day, you have a true Hammer. If the opening price is not higher than the closing price the last day, it is not a true Hammer!

Whenever, you trade candlestick patterns, first spot them correctly than wait for the confirmation on the following day. The best chart for these candlestick patterns is the daily chart. Once, you get the confirmation, trade these patterns. They can be highly profitable. But in case, you don’t get the confirmation the next day with the price action, simply ignore the pattern as not true.

Spinning Top is a signal that the battle between the bulls and the bears ended in a draw. It will start next day again with ony side giving in. What this means is that an explosive move in the price action can take place the following day. Spinning Top is just like the Hanging Man and the Hammer.

Spinning tops appear much more frequently and are very easy to spot with a very small body in the middle of the candlestick and almost equal wicks on the two sides. A spinning top is a nice indication that the trend is about to change direction. Knowing about a trend change early is a highly profitable trading signal.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Get this 49 page Quantum Swing Trading Report FREE. Master Candlestick Charting with this 82 page PDF FREE Candlestick Guide!

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What Are Trend Following Indicators?

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Trend following indicators is a way that many people invest in stocks. It’s a strategy that is used which will use long-term moves on how markets have done in the past to figure out what to trade and what to keep.

Basically a way of watching the way the market moves and investing based on those past movements of certain stocks. Use of not only the current market price, but averages for moving, and breakouts will be used to figure out what to do.

When traders do this type of method they will not be forecasting the stocks and what is going to happen. Instead they are simply following a trend that has been shown in the past. Looking to the current prices of the stock, equity levels and what the market’s current volatility. Those are the main components that will be used by the trader when using this method.

Trend following indicators will not be used on a new stock that has come to the market, but one that has been established. When using this method the price will always be the consideration that is put first. Plus when using this method they may use the indicators to guess which way the stock will head next.

They should know when the trend will continue until, and how much they will trade during that time. If the market becomes more volatile they will reduce the levels of trading this will be to cut losses. Price and time are the most important things for trend following indicators.

With trend following indicators you should be able to answer the following questions. When you enter the market, how many shares you will trade at a time. Money that will be risked for each trade, how will you cut your losses on a trade, and what to do when the trade becomes profitable?

Find more on ETF trading system and ETF trend trading.

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Using Those Trend Following Indicators

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
by Gery Boton

By using trend following indicators it’s a way to track how to trade stocks. A strategy that will use how those stocks have done in the past on the market, and how they should do in the future as well.

Basically a way of watching the way the market moves and investing based on those past movements of certain stocks. Use of not only the current market price, but averages for moving, and breakouts will be used to figure out what to do.

People who use this method are not forecasting what will happen but they are following a trend and using it. This method will use three main components. Current price of stock, equity level and current market volatility. How much you buy or sell will be determined prior to buying of the stock and be based on volatility.

This type of method will be used only after the stock has established a trend. In other words not on a new stock that hasn’t yet established any type of trend to it. Price will be one of the main considerations in this method. A person who trades through this method may use indicators to figure out which way the stock will go next.

Also how much will be traded during the trend will need to be figured out as well. If the market is at high volatility though trading will most likely be reduced in order to cut the losses on the trades. If you use trend following indicators, price and time are always going to be very important.

The following questions will be able to be answered when you use this type of method. Shares that will be traded during the trend, how to enter the market and at what time. Risk to be taken on each trade, cutting of unprofitable stocks, and how to get rid of profitable stocks.

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ETF Basics

Friday, May 29th, 2009
by Jordan J. Weir

While many investors have an overall outlook, and may be able to accurately predict what will be the next big thing, it is often harder to nail which company will be able to best take advantage of the coming conditions. After all, while it may be easy to figure out, retail stocks are going to be hammered by this recession, that doesn’t help you decide which retail company is best to short. And while it may be easy to figure out, reduced demand from the developed world is going to hurt Chinese companies, its much harder ” especially for those non-mandarin speaking people such as myself ” to figure out exactly which Chinese companies might escape this fate. So how can we take advantage of these outlooks without having to pick specific companies?

The answer lies in a little tool known as the ETF. ETF stands for Exchange Traded fund. Think of it as a mutual fund that isn’t actively managed, focuses on a certain area, and can be traded like a stock without incurring extra penalties. Each ETF holds a number of companies, similar to a mutual fund, and its listed price is simply the overall value of the companies it holds.

Each ETF is designed to mimic an investment in a certain industry, region, or type of stock. Some examples of ETFs are the XLI, XLU, and EWC. These ETFs grant an investor exposure to the industrial sector of the S&P 500, the utilities sector of the S&P 500, and the entire Canadian stock market, respectively. Similarly, one who simply wanted to match the S&P 500 indexs returns could just invest in the SPY.

Yet if ETFs are so similar to mutual funds, why not just use a mutual fund. There really are a couple reasons to do so. First off, mutual funds have a history of underperforming the stock market as a whole after fees are included. This makes simple index investing, through an ETF representing a large basket of stocks, such as the SPY, an extremely effective way of matching the markets returns with nearly no cost. There are also slight tax advantages with ETFs compared to mutual funds. Mutual funds have to pay capital gains tax whenever they sell one of their holdings, and whenever they have a large wave of redemptions, they have to sell their positions to come up with the money. This leads to excess fees, some of which get passed on to the remaining investors.

Of course, the vast convenience ETFs have over mutual funds shouldn’t be underestimated. ETFs can be traded just like a stock, giving active traders the ability to buy and sell intraday. The ability to short was impossible with a mutual fund, but now it can be done. During any bear market, the ability to benefit from the fall of sectors as well as their rise is a valuable one to have.

A great boon to ETF investors, never before experienced by mutual fund holders, is the ability to use stock options to control risk. Stock options can be used to reduce the risk by using covered calls, or buying protective puts. Alternatively, call options can be used to control maximum loss, and potentially increase profits.

One thing to note is that not all ETFs are created equal. While some simply hold a basket of stocks and use those to keep the ETFs value near the benchmark, many use other, more exotic strategies, with various degrees of success. QLD for instance, aims to gain roughly twice the daily returns of the Nasdaq composite index, and is usually fairly consistent when doing this. Another similar instrument is the ETN, which is actually a debt based instrument. While ETNs also aims to gain returns based on a given benchmark, there price is also sensitive to changes in the debt rating of the issuer, and this should be considered when investing in them.

The only reason not to use ETFs is a lack of understanding, for they really are one of the most revolutionary investment tools of the 21st century. Their ability to reduce risk through diversification across an asset class, while still effectively giving an investor exposure to an entire sector, should be taken advantage of by everybody, for both long and short plays. ETFs are an invaluable asset for everyone invested in any stock market, and their advantages should be used to the fullest.

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The first step to making fortunes in the markets is learning them, so visit my website and become a master of the markets! Learn about “insider secrets” such as ETF Investing, Stock trading strategies, stock options, and more!

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