Thursday, February 04, 2010

Most overbought and oversold ETFs approaches?

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/ each day puts out a most overbought and most oversold ETF chart of the day. I have had some success with these if following a few rules.

First, it is a waiting game to ride out short term hiccups in reversals being sought in such liquid issues. There is a reason I no longer trade this way. It is boring. It requires patience I do not have, even if agreeable to swing trading in principle. Finally, you are at the mercy to the nth degree of the broader indices. 

Larry Connors plugs his book there
http://store.tradingmarkets.com/books/stocks/high-probability-etf-trading-7-quantified-strategies.html?utm_source=TMH_TL_E&utm_medium=TM&utm_campaign=TMH_TL_E

but you should be aware if it were that easy to trade real stocks, and not promotional gimmies, everyone would be rich and on vacation every day of the year. I attended a free seminar of his, asked about the trade results of his expensive seminars, which should be easy to provide after the fact documentation of, and was told to enroll in the class to see the proof! Not exactly transparent investment managment, to invoke Sykes.

If you want to play these, some tips:

1) Do not buy them unless on the day of targeted entry you get MORE early session moves in the same direction of the short term overbought or oversold condition. Once it begins to finally reverse on heavy volume, go for the entry.

2) From the above it follows you should never ever buy the gap up or down which immediately moves in the direction of the reversal you are seeking. Wait 30 minutes for another entry, you will usually get one at a correct price, and if not, oh well. You must be willing to skip some of these plays if they are less than ideal.

Similar to my above post on stocks experiencing short term 1-4 day pullbacks or rallies, the ETF strategy they outline at the above link involves trading long oversold ETFs riding above their 200 SMA or selling short ETFs that are below their 200 SMA when those ETFs are experiencing the (hopefully ending) multi-day move against the dominant trend of the ETF. Your timing the reversal right determines the trade outcome.

The exit plan is to sell once the ETF closes above the 5 SMA or to use some RSI 2 criteria.

The trouble is these things can take DAYS to stop trading sideways after the up or down momentum of the overbought/oversold condition is arrested, and to yield an acceptable profit to liquidate the trade. Also, you have to avoid lousy super expensive per share bond and treasury offerings.

Set a reasonably wide physical or mental stop, like 1/8th to 1/4 point above or below the previous day's low or high as your bail point, and take into account recent support and resistance levels, as always. You can be taken out on a last gasp buying or selling climax, only to find the trade would have worked out otherwise, so be prepared to experience a reasonable amount of downside before getting on the road to profits on the play. You can limit the likelihood of such discomfort being significant if you heed the good entry price suggestions I have have touched on above. Most of the worst problems in this type of play are caused by bad entries.

Click on the ETF tab and articles list of recently archived materials to find the two plays, do not use Yahoo finance to find this setup daily, as they do not carry the article each and every day and it usually is out daily.

No comments: