ETF (Sectors) swing trading

R

richk

Hello,

are there traders who are swing trading ETFs (sectors primarly with broadbased as additions) ? I am interesting in opening thread for discussion about setups (and journals) of such trades, but before do that I want to know if there will be any interest in such discussion.

Happy trading,
 
I am stuck in a swing trade long 2,000 QQQ's from 31.36...been stuck for a week......Probably my worst trade yet.....I had 8 straight profitable Q trades 2 weeks ago then got caught in this mess......
 
Quote from TraderNYC:
I am stuck in a swing trade long 2,000 QQQ's from 31.36...been stuck for a week
More...
Must be more than a week - Qs haven't see 31.36 since 8/5 - price rode to a new monthly low from there

What was/is your planned "get out" price?
 
I'm short XLK and not proud of it. I've just started trading ETFs. I have a list of about a dozen that I look at that have high volume (over 200k).

The strange thing to me is I'm shying away from equities because I can't stand being hit by earnings announcements, institutional moves, upgrades/downgrades, etc. However, I am finding that indexes get bumped with the macroeconomic numbers and there's macroeconomic data virtually every day, so in some ways it's tougher.
 
Shoeshine Boy:

I see liquidity as no problem for swing trading as price is moving not by trading of ETF but tracked sector index. Based on sector index value (indicative value for ETF) I enter limit orders. I am able to get fill +/- 0.05 from fair price in most cases which is not bad for swing trades.

I see that the sectors are well tradable by technical analysys and are not so sensitive to earnings of one company, and/or macro data.

I have now list about 20 ETFs in my watch list, scan them every day and prepare setups. Right today I have 5 setups (4xshort,1x long), no entered today.
 
I felt the spreads were a little too high on some of the smaller ETFs, but I realize a lot of that is personal preference and trading style.

You're where I want to be. Right now I'm kind of dabbling. I guess what I'm talking about is that I feel a lot of the technical stuff I felt was saying we were due for at least a small correction. But then we've had some more optimistic macro data this last week and now everything got bumped up a little. But I realize one could easily argue that we weren't due for a correction at all.

So how do you decide how many "threads" to trade, i.e. how many positions to hold at one time?
 
I am not sure what is enough liquidity for you, but ETF for swings are not so sensitive for daily volume. I have in my watch list:
SMH, BBH,SWH,RTH,UTH,PPH,IBB,HHH,XLF,TTH,WMH,IYR,IGN,IYZ, TLT, IEF and DIA, SPY, QQQ.
 
Quote from ShoeshineBoy:


The strange thing to me is I'm shying away from equities because I can't stand being hit by earnings announcements, institutional moves, upgrades/downgrades, etc. However, I am finding that indexes get bumped with the macroeconomic numbers and there's macroeconomic data virtually every day, so in some ways it's tougher.
More...

Yes, I've also found that to be true, generally. I've revised some of the indicators and levels I use for swing trading stocks into use for ETFs. Many of the same approaches work, but ETFs are more "shallow", less volatile in their price movement. So the opportunities for 2-3 point gains in holding a few days are seldom as strong as with individual stocks. On the other hand, they can also get hit with overnight and economic news. So in terms of overall risk/reward and best use of capital, I still prefer stocks.
 
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