Options or ETFs - which is better for the individual investor?

It is generally agreed that the ProShares long/short and ultra-long/ultra-short ETFs are good vehicles for both hedging and short term trading.

One voice of dissent is from those who are adept at trading options. Their point is that options are cheaper and can provide more leverage. The variety of option strategies (puts, calls, butterflies, straddles, buy/write, LEAPs, etc.) can provide more flexibility. There are also a much larger number of stocks, each with an associated options chain, to choose from while there are only 64 ProShares ETFs, for example, currently on the market.

For the individual investor, though, the ease of use derived from the ETF approach may outweigh the benefits of using options. In the case of the ETF, an investor does not need to choose an expiration date or a strike price.

Now that ProShares has expanded their offerings with ultra-long/ultra-short sector ETFs in addition to the ETFs that track major market averages, investors now have the choice of choosing numerous different types of indexes against which to hedge or speculate. Still, compared to the nearly overwhelming choice of options, ETFs make the selection of the appropriate vehicle much more straightforward.

Comments

ecourses4free said…

Did you visit the site with a free options trading course? - As they say: "You make money whether the market goes up, down or sideways"
-- http://www.tradeologists.com

October 23, 2008 at 5:25:00 AM EDT

Brazil - in a bubble or on a roll?

A couple of years ago, no one recognized the real estate bubble even though it was under everyone's nose. Now, analysts and bloggers are seeing bubbles everywhere they look. One of them, they say is in Brazil whose Bovespa stock market index has doubled in the last 12 months. Does the bubble accusation hold water? I don't think so and here are 7 reasons why Brazil is by no means a bubble economy: Exports have held up over the past year thanks to demand from China for Brazil's soya exports and iron ore. This was helped by the the Brazilian government's drive to improve trade links with Asia and Africa. Export diversification, spurred by a more active trade policy and increased focus on "south-south" trade under current president Lula, helped mitigate the decline in demand from OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries A "sensible" economic framework has been in place since the 1990's. This has included inflation

Thursday Bounce: Trend Busters, Swing Signals and Trend Leaders for July 9, 2009

This is a quick post to announce that we have published Thursday's Trend Leaders, Swing Signals and Trend Busters at Alert HQ . All are based on daily data. Today we have the following: 72 Swing Signals -- A couple of days ago we had 35 signals, today we have twice as many. Happily, we now have 65 BUY signals, a mere 4 SELL Signals plus 3 Strong BUYs. Whoo-hoo! 56 Trend Leaders , all in strong up-trends according to Aroon, MACD and DMI. There are 18 new stocks that made today's list and 60 that fell off Tuesday's list. 48 Trend Busters of which 5 are BUY signals and 43 are SELL signals The view from Alert HQ -- Talk about mixed signals. If you look at our Swing Signals list you would think the market was in the middle of a big bounce. BUY signals are swamping the SELL signals and we even have a few Strong BUYs. Yes, there's a good sprinkling of tech stocks and tech ETFs but the distribution is pretty broad-based with a good number of different sectors represented, eve

Unlock Stock Market Profits - Key #1

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles where I discuss what I feel are keys to successful investing. It is based on a post that provides a summary of the ten keys that individual investors should use to identify profitable stock trades. ( Click here to read the original post ) There are two basic steps to investing. First, you need to find stocks that seem to have some potential. Then you have to determine whether these stocks are actually good investments. There are many stocks that at first glance look interesting, but further research reveals that there are too many negatives to warrant taking a position. This first post in the series starts at the beginning: getting good investment ideas. Key #1: If something special is happening to a stock, it will be reflected in some kind of unusual activity in the markets. As individual investors, we will never be the first to know; however, unusual activity can be an early sign that allows us to follow the Wall Street professional

the Trade-Radar + TradingStockAlerts blog

Search This Blog