21 Nov 09 Leveraged Short ETFs

You can short stocks. You can even short ETFs. Have you ever heard of Short ETFs? The ProShares Short Dow 30 ETF (DOG) will return the inverse of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) on daily basis. If the DJIA falls by 2%, DOG rises by 2% and if the DJIA rises by 2%, DOG will fall by 2%. Short ETF returns the inverse of the index it is linked to.

During the past few years, the number of Short ETFs has risen dramatically. Short ETFs not only cover the major stock indices like the S&P 500 or the DJIA but also different sectors like the energy, utilities or technology. You will even find Inverse ETFs on currencies now. Short ETFs are also known as Inverse ETFs or Bear ETFs.

The ProShares UltraShort Dow 30 ETF (DXD) rises 2% when the DJIA falls by 1%. So you can even find leverage short ETFs. A leveraged short ETF gives the trader leverage without the use of margins.

Over the years, short ETFs have risen in popularity with the investors and hedge funds. Short ETFs give you an excellent opportunity to profit from the volatility in the market and the major indices.

If you have been trading currencies, then you should know that inverse currency ETFs are a great way to profit from the volatility in the underlying currencies. Short ETFs are a great product as they have created new opportunities for traders. A trader had to actually short sell stocks to take advantage of a market drop before the introduction of short ETFs.

In the past if the market was dropping, the trader had to go against the trend and buy or else move into cash or fixed income. Traders are not allowed to sell short stocks or ETFs in their retirement accounts. Short and leveraged ETFs provide traders with new opportunities.

China is one example that garners a lot of attention. The Shanghai Index in China rose 100% in 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the Shanghai Index was down 35%. ETFs also provide you with the opportunity to take advantage of the global market swings.

In the past, traders who wanted to benefit from the fall of Chinese stocks could only short Chinese stocks that were traded in US Stock Exchanges. The ProShares family of ETFs introduced the Ultrashort FTSE/Xinhua China 25 ETF (FXP). Now if you want to trade the fall of Chinese stocks, you can trade FXP ETF.

As a long term investor you can take advantage of short ETFs to hedge your portfolio position. Assume you have a portfolio of $100,000 composed of 75% stocks and 25% money market fixed income.

The forecast of the market for the next six months is not good. But you are reluctant to sell your stocks due to tax reasons. Suppose the market falls by 10%. Your stock portfolio falls by 7.5% assuming the same ratio between the market and your portfolio.

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19 Nov 09 Short Selling Stocks

An investor who is short selling is borrowing stocks from the brokers and selling them to another buyer. The sale money goes to the account of the investor. At some point, the investor has to buy back the stock ideally at a lower price to make profit and return it to the broker.

You must be proficient in using technical indicators if you want to become a trader. Without learning technical analysis, you will always be doing trading on your hunches which is a bad thing. Suppose you are using the RSI technical indicator that is giving a crossover sell signal. All signs are pointing towards at least a small pullback. You feel that the stock ABC is overvalued at $60 and at some point in the near future the market will make a correction.

You place an order to short 1000 shares of ABC stock at $60. 1000 shares of stock ABC are sold at $60 and $60,000 is placed in your account. Over the next week, you are jittery as the stock ABC instead of going down climbs to $65.

However, you have catered for this eventuality by placing a stop loss at 10% of your account. This comes out to be $6,000. So the stop loss is not triggered and you are still in the market hoping for the price to stop going up.

You are prepared to lose $6,000 in anticipation of a stock price tumble as your technical indicators are giving you the sell signals. If the price goes up to $66, your stop loss will be triggered and you will be out of the market.

Suddenly on the release of a disappointing earnings report, the stock price tumbles 20% in one day. Now most earnings mishaps last a few days. So you wait and don’t cover your short position for the next few days.

Market hates sudden surprises. Anything that is already known to the market is already included in the price of the stock. So this negative earnings report was a sudden surprise. You decide to cover your short position, stock ABC price falls to $45. You need to buy back the 100 shares of ABC that were sold short earlier at the market price of $45 in order to close your position.

You pay $45,000 to buy back 1000 shares of stock ABC and return them to your broker. So your net profit in this case is $60,000-$45,000= $15,000. With this simple example, you should be able to understand the mechanics of short selling stocks.

Assume that you had bought the stocks for $45 per share and sold them at $60 per share, the same profit would have been made. In reality, you paid $45 per share to buy ABC stocks and sold them at $60 per share giving you a profit of $15 per share.

When you short a stock, the goal is to sell it at a higher price but in the case of short selling stocks, selling takes place first instead of buying. The goal of buying a stock is to sell it at a higher price in the future.

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18 Nov 09 What Is Shorting Stocks?

When the market is falling, investors sell short a stock with the goal of profiting from the fall in the price of that stock. Many beginning investors get confused when they realize that it is possible to make money when the stock falls in price. In practice, shorting a stock is as easy as buying stocks once you get hang of it.

When you short a stock, you borrow it from you broker and sell it with the intention of buying it back at a lower price in the near term future and returning it to your broker. The difference between the selling price and the buying price in case the price goes down is your profit.

When the price of a stock goes down, you make profit. You are anticipating further fall in the price of the stock when you short a stock. However, if the price of the stock instead of going down starts to go up, you get a loss.

Many people are afraid of short selling stocks. They are right to some extent. Theoretically a stock price can go up and up making your loss as big as infinity. In such a scenario, your loss can be infinite. So shorting a stock without proper risk and money management is not wise. However, before that happens most probably you will receive a margin call from your broker that leads to a forced sale before your losses reach unmanageable proportions.

Short selling can play havoc with companies. If there is a short selling attack on a company’s stock by speculators, the company can easily go bankrupt. This is precisely what happened in 2008. Short sellers were responsible for bringing many blue chip companies down. In the stock market crash of 2008, many financial companies went bankrupt due to the short selling of their shares by the speculators. Some people are against the strategy of shorting stocks. A temporary ban was put on shorting for sometime during that period.

However, the goal of short selling is not to drive the price of a stock to zero and put the company out of business. In swing trading, we are simply looking to profit from the ups and downs of stock prices. When the price of a stock goes down, short selling is the best swing trading strategy.

Negative news like poor earning, credit rating downgrade or a poor product launch can bring down a stock price in a matter of minutes and wipe out the steady gains made in months. One reason why swing traders love short selling is due to the velocity of the moves!

Swing traders always look for big winners and this brings them to the short side of the market. When the price of a stock starts to fall, chances are it will fall more before the market stabilizes and the price starts to rise again. Shot selling can be a good hedging strategy for long term investors too. So if you a long term investor, you can lessen the impact of the sharp price drop on your portfolio by using a short selling hedging strategy.

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