Getting A Handle On 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 a huge variety of trading strategies out there when it comes to tracking market movements and then setting up a timed strategy for getting in and out of those markets. Usually, though, all strategies tend to fall into two major categories known as technical and fundamental. Strategists who use technical methods think they can discern shapes and patterns in market movements.

Those traitors who are good at picking out patterns and shapes in the movement of markets use stock charts to do so. Income earned can be very lucrative if done correctly. Those movements upwards or downwards can, basically, be timed through analysis and then markets can be exploited by those movements through trading of stocks at the right time.

One of the most common of technical strategies that exists today is to utilize what professional and amateur traders call the "moving average cross." With it, traders look at short-term movements in the market -- or a stock or fund -- and then overlay that short-term movement on a long-term trendline. Usually, most short-term movements are from-- to 25 days in duration to create a moving average line.

Once the moving average line can be established, traders then take that line and lay it over the analysis of the short-term movements in order to pick out the actual movement in the price of a stock or asset such as held in an ETF will result in after the stock crosses over the moving average line. The second part involves long-term trends, which use a 50 day moving average in order to smooth out the short-term trend.

In this manner, ETF traders can look at the long-term trends and create a moving support line. Usually, traders using this technical strategy will look at purchasing a stock as it begins its upward movement or once it goes back up after it has touched or slightly penetrated the 50 day moving average. Opposite, a trader could sell the stock short. Either way can work effectively. - 29971

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