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Friday, December 4, 2009

Understanding Good ETF Trading Strategies

By Patrick Deaton

As an investment vehicle that can promise a consistent -- and sometimes exceptional -- rate of return on investment (ROI), exchange traded funds can really deliver. Getting a handle on ETF trading strategies will be necessary, though, before jumping into investing in ETF's in any meaningful way. There are a few things to know, first of all, about exchange traded funds.

These particular funds resemble mutual funds in some ways, especially in how they are set up. Additionally, ETFs usually restrict membership -- if you want to call it that -- to what ETFs refer to as "authorized participants." This usually means institutional investors who have the ability to buy and sell huge blocks of assets. Small investors can participate through ETF trading systems, though.

Imagine corporate stocks and how they are traded or bought and sold and you will have a good idea of how exchange traded funds are also moved through the markets. Almost every exchange traded fund establishes its operations so that it can track one or several of the major market indexes. For example, many track the S&P 500. This makes it easier to follow trends and set up trading strategies.

There are more strategies out there that can probably be counted, though they usually fall into a couple of major categories; fundamental and technical. For those with the savvy, or patience, to sit down and learn technical strategies, the rewards can be quite lucrative. Most traders using technical indices believe they can discern patterns or shapes in a stock chart, basically.

Being able to discern these patterns or shapes in a stock chart (basically up-and-down movements of the stock over a defined period of time) can give a signal of the possibility of profitable trading opportunities which might exist. Many traders claim that they can make consistent profits from trading using technical analysis in this manner.

One of the most common technical trading strategies used by many traders is what is called a "moving average cross." Moving average crosses try to match up a short-term evolution in the price of the stock and superimpose that over a long-term trend in that same stock or market. By tracking a short-term up-and-down movement over-- to 25 days, it may be possible to establish a moving average line.

Once this line is established, it can be superimposed over the short term evolution analysis in order to determine which way the stock price in the ETF will go through the moving average line after it is crossed. The bottom, or long-term trend analysis usually consists of looking at a 50-day moving average. This longer timeline tends to smooth or dampen out those short-term trends.

In this way, ETF trading strategies involving the long-term trend can be used as what industry experts call a "moving support line." A typical strategy by most traders in this instance would be to purchase a stock or an asset in the ETF when it is in the beginning of an uptrend or if the stock price goes back up after it either touches or barely penetrates the 50-day moving average. One could short the stock also. - 23217

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