Thursday, March 08, 2007

Inverse and Leveraged Inverse ETF Activity May Be a Contrarian Indicator

One sign that the market had gone too far to the downside was when the volume of chatter about inverse and leveraged inverse ETFs went up dramatically. I have begun to experiment with such securities recently with some success but I used them only on a test basis in limited quantities. At this juncture I hold no positions in these instruments for my clients, family or myself. However, there are now many day traders and chartists out there who are jumping into those instruments with reckless abandon. Just check out the surge in volume for the UltraShort QQQ ProShares (QID) and UltraShort S&P500 ProShares (SDS) since the beginning of the year.

I think that testing my hypothesis which I am now suggesting that these products are contrary signals is a great research project for one of my Seton Hall students. Of course, we would need significantly more data points to display meaningful results. We will get hopping on this endeavor when classes resume next week.

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