PowerRatings and ETF Trading: Revenge of the Short Funds
Both the Dow and S&P 500 finished higher on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq lagging behind.
Over the past few days, swing traders have been on the sidelines — either taking profits as previous positions move higher or keeping a close eye on the likely opportunities just around the corner from the current rally.
As I suggested a few columns back, opportunities to take positions in short or inverse ETFs would likely come before opportunities to buy stocks on pullback. Fortunately, our Short Term PowerRatings are an excellent guide for both situations, helping both ETF traders and stock traders spot the kind of temporary weakness that historically has led to strong short term gains.
I have offered short or inverse exchange-traded funds in the past. And while there is no guarantee that they will work as well for traders this time around as they have in the past few times they’ve appeared as potential trades for this column, we are following the exact same gameplan now as we did then in focusing only on those most oversold ETFs with the highest Short Term PowerRatings.
Here is a list of five such ETFs. They include ETFs based on sectors such as technology, as well as whole markets such as the Nasdaq 100 and the Russell 2000. All five ETFs have Short Term PowerRatings of 8, and all have 2-period RSIs of less than 30 (which is considered oversold in an exchange-traded fund).
ProShares UltraShort Financial ETF
(
SKF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Short Term PowerRating 8. RSI(2): 12.09
ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 ETF
(
SDS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Short Term PowerRating 8. RSI(2): 16.80
ProShares Short Russell 2000 ETF
(
RWM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Short Term PowerRating 8. RSI(2): 17.45
ProShares UltraShort Technology ETF
(
REW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Short Term PowerRating 8. RSI(2): 29.96
ProShares Short Nasdaq 100 ETF
(
PSQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Short Term PowerRating 8. RSI(2): 20.06
Note also that three of the ETFs listed here — SKF, SDS, and REW – are not only inverse or short funds, but are also leveraged 2 to 1. This leverage magnifies potential gains, but also magnifies losses. Traders trading ETFs with 2 to 1 leverage — to say nothing of 3 to 1 — should be particularly wary of having more exposure to a given market than they handle safely.
According to a recent report, eight out of ten securities traded are exchange-traded funds. Want to learn how to trade them? Click here to find out what traders are saying about Larry Connors’ new book, Short Term Trading Strategies That Work: A Quanitified Guide to Trading Stocks and ETFs!