What is Market Timing?
Market Timing is a top down view of the market and its prospects. The elements of market timing including investor sentiment, trends in interest rates and fed action, overall market valuation, technical underpinning, and flow of funds. Market timing provides investors with the opportunity to avoid major market price declines. The elements of market timing including investor sentiment, trends in interest rates and fed action, overall market valuation, technical underpinning, and flow of funds. Market Timing is a top down view of the market and its prospects.
 

What is Technical Analysis?
Technical analysis is a very powerful tool and is a pre-requisite for anyone who wants to predict financial market movements. The term "technical analysis" is a complicated sounding name for a very basic approach to investing. Simply put, technical analysis is the study of prices, with charts being the primary tool. So while it seems as if volume and technical analysis in general all have some forecasting abilities, none are foolproof. Used together, they can be quite helpful in your trading and investing, but should be looked at more as helpful hints as to a markets bias, more than anything else.
 

Is Fundamental Analysis is a part of Technical Analysis?
There are two major types of analysis for predicting the performance of a company's stock - Fundamental analysis and Technical analysis. Fundamental Analysis probes the Balance Sheet, the Income Statement, and the Statement of Sources and Uses of Working Capital.
 

Why trade indices and their derivatives instead of stocks?
The price and volume of individual stocks fluctuate with unpredictable events such as news, rumors and earnings reports. By tailoring our indicators for the major market indices, we reduce the uncertainty by dealing with numerous stocks together. The volatility of any one stock in our indicators is diluted.
 

How can I trade indices and their derivatives?
You can trade Futures and Options contracts on the indexes themselves or any of a number of stand in instruments for the stocks associated with the index. There are several index stocks, such as Spider (AMEX: SPY) for the S&P 500 index, Diamonds (AMEX: DIA) for the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, QQQQ for NASDAQ 100 index (NASDAQ: QQQQ), HHH for largest 20 internet companies and many others.
 

I am not located in the U.S. Can I participate in the U.S. market?
International Exchanges correlate very much with the US stock market. That means you can trade your local securities correlated with US indices very successfully. Today, participation in U.S. markets is easy, with many brokers offering Internet execution for foreigners as well as a completely secure environment such as Datek, Web Securities. The TradersFloor® techniques, however, will work on both U.S. and international markets.
 

What are Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)?
ETFs represent shares of ownership in either fund or unit investment trusts that hold portfolios of common stocks which are designed to generally correspond to the price and yield performance of their underlying portfolios of securities, either broad market, sector or international. ETFs give investors the opportunity to buy or sell an entire portfolio of stocks in a single security, as easily as buying or selling a share of stock. They offer a wide range of investment opportunities. ETFs (also called index shares) track a specific basket of securities and trade continuously on the major exchanges like an ordinary stock.
 

Where can I buy or sell ETFs?
You can buy or sell ETFs through a broker of your choice, just as you buy stock.
 

What are SPDRs and Mid Cap SPDRs?
With Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPDRs) and Standard & Poor's Mid Cap 400 Depositary Receipts (Mid Cap SPDRs), investors can purchase shares in a diversified portfolio, receive quarterly cash dividends and buy or sell those shares at any time during the trading day. SPDRs and Mid Cap SPDRs represent units of beneficial interest in unit investment trusts that hold the component stocks of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and the Standard & Poor's Mid Cap 400 Index, respectively. SPDRs and Mid Cap SPDRs trade like shares of common stock and can be traded at any time during the trading day on the American Stock Exchange. SPDRs trade under the ticker symbol "SPY" and Mid Cap SPDRs trade under the symbol "MDY" and are designed to provide investment results that generally correspond to the performance and dividend yield of each of the underlying indexes.
 

Who should invest in SPDRs and Mid Cap SPDRs?
By purchasing a share of "the market," investors can instantly gain a diverse portfolio through some of the most closely followed indexes in the United States. SPDRs and Mid Cap SPDRs offer investors a low-cost means to gain either long- or short-term exposure to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Standard & Poor’s Mid Cap 400 Index, two of the most closely followed benchmarks for the U.S. stock market.
 

How easily can I buy or sell ETFs?
As easily as you can buy or sell shares of stock, ETFs are listed and traded on The American Stock Exchange—that makes it easy for you to buy or sell shares throughout the trading day while traditional index mutual funds can generally be purchased or redeemed only at an end-of-day closing price.
 

What is the minimum purchase?
You can purchase as little as one share.
 

Why invest in an index?
Indexing, often called "passive management," involves investing in a group of stocks that represent the composition of a broad-market, sector, or international index. Index funds offer "market level" performance, they aim to generally match the market performance of a specific index in advancing or declining markets. Passive indexed investments, because they generally have lower management and expense fees, may outperform many actively managed funds over the long-term.