Security Trading Analytics

 Should I Trade Single-Stock Leveraged ETFs? This post examines a set of seventeen single-stock leveraged ETFs that are tracked from their inception through April 30, 2026.  An additional set of seventeen underlying securities is also tracked to help you appreciate how underlying securities can provide important clues about when to buy and sell single-stock leveraged ETFs. A single-stock leveraged ETF is based on an individual stock instead of a basket of securities.  Unlike traditional ETFs, single-stock leveraged ETFs do not have built-in diversification.  If you feel uncomfortable about managing a collection of individual securities that complement one another, then you should avoid single-stock ETFs in favor of traditional ETFs, such as  SPY, QQQ, and DIA, which offer broad diversification. Because many single-stock ETFs employ leverage, they are best suited for short-term trades during periods of rapid price acceleration.  They can also be hazardous: d...

  Building and Backtesting a Buy-Sell Model with Close Prices and EMAs Buy-Sell models are among my favorite analytical techniques because they simulate what traders do on a regular basis – namely, buy and sell securities.  However, no amount of backtesting is enough to guarantee how well a buy-sell model reflects actual market performance.  This is because publicly traded financial security prices are driven by diverse factors that can change over time.  Nevertheless, buy-sell models can offer useful guidelines for buying and selling securities when current market conditions are similar to previously backtested market scenarios. EMAs are another of my favorite analytical tools for modeling the behavior of security prices.  EMA is an abbreviation for an exponential moving average.  However, an EMA is really not an averaging technique.  Instead, EMAs are a smoothing technique for time series data.  The period, or more precisely period length, of an...