Frequently
Asked Questions
Questions
about subscriptions
Questions
about the System
How
much does your service cost? |
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We offer two subscription
plans. You can subscribe on a Monthly basis ($49.95 per month)
or a Yearly basis ($499.95 per year).
The Yearly plan provides the best value as it saves you
almost $100.00 over a one-year period. Both
plans give you full access to ETFTide's
services and come with an unconditional 30-day
money back guarantee for first time subscribers. If not satisfied
for any reason during the first 30 days, ETFTide
will be glad to issue a full refund. Please read our "Refund/Cancellation
Policy".
There is no long term commitment.
You can cancel at any time but after the initial 30-day period there are
no refunds.
If you decide to subscribe to our service, you will first be billed after
you complete our subscription process (using our "Subscribe"
page). You will then choose a User ID and Password which gives you immediate
access to our current ranked ETF lists, as well as other subscriber-only
resources of the Web site.
Unless you cancel
the service, your subscription plan will automatically renew at the end
of the subscription period, and you will be billed accordingly. This helps
prevent any lapses in membership during which valuable trade signals could
be missed.
What do I get as part of the service? |
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Once a subscriber, you
can log in to the site at anytime and check the latest ETF Ranking, as well
as the current results of our sample portfolio, which includes the top five
ETFs and is rebalanced every 4 weeks.
The ETF Ranking table is updated weekly but since we recommend rebalancing
your portfolio only every 4 weeks (see "How Frequently
do I Trade?" FAQ for more details), you do not have to log
in every day.
ETFTide also publishes a short
Weekly Commentary after the close of the market on Mondays. This commentary
is posted on our Web site and also sent to you by e-mail.
How
much money do I need to get started? |
|
There is no minimum,
but in order to keep the subscription fee to no more than 1%, an amount
of at least $50,000 would be justified (we used the $499.95 Yearly fee).
On the other hand, a 2.5% gain on a $20,000 portfolio pays for the fee,
and we would expect much higher gains in a typical year.
Can
I upgrade from a Monthly to a Yearly subscription plan? |
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Yes!
Upgrading is advantageous and simple. A Yearly subscription
plan costs $499.95 and will save
you nearly $100.00 annually.
To find details and initiate the upgrade process, monthly subscribers must
log in and click on the "Show me how" upgrading button
located on the "ETF Ranking" page.
Do you offer Professional subscriptions for RIAs or broker/dealers?
|
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Yes, a Professional
subscription is required by Registered Investment Advisors (RIA), broker/dealers
or other institutional investors to use the ETFTide
system and stock recommendations to direct the investment of your clients'
assets. The benefits of a professional subscription range from offloading
the day-to-day research to a proven and successful approach with a record
of market-beating performance. Our professional and institutional services
are available through our sister company MARKETTREND Advisors. You can contact them by going directly to their Web site at
www.MarketTrendAdvisors.com or by contacting them at:
MARKETTREND Advisors, Ltd.
3720 Gattis School Road #800-214
Round Rock, TX 78664
| Phone: |
(512) 255-8722 |
| Fax: |
(512) 255-8732 |
| Email: |
info@markettrendadvisors.com
|
| Business
hours: |
Monday
through Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm Central Standard Time |
Do
you offer autotrading or managed accounts? |
|
Yes.
For those who do not have the time or inclination to trade our recommendations
themselves, our sister company MARKETTREND Advisors offers ETFTide
money management. You can contact them by going directly to their Web site
at www.MarketTrendAdvisors.com
or by contacting them at:
MARKETTREND Advisors, Ltd.
3720 Gattis School Road #800-214
Round Rock, TX 78664
| Phone: |
(512) 255-8722 |
| Fax: |
(512) 255-8732 |
| Email: |
info@markettrendadvisors.com
|
| Business
hours: |
Monday
through Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm Central Standard Time |
How
do I cancel and discontinue the service? |
|
You can cancel at anytime.
You simply have to send a cancellation request by e-mailing us at sales@etftide.com
or by using our "Contact
Us" page. Please specify your User ID in the message.
Please read our "Refund/Cancellation
Policy".
Can
the ETFTide System be used to invest retirement funds such
as an IRA? |
|
The answer is an emphatic
Yes. Most self-directed qualified retirement plans like
IRAs allow you to trade the ETFs we recommend and since we do not employ
shorting or margin it can be fully implemented in such retirement accounts.
How
can I be sure I receive e-mails from ETFTide? |
|
With junk e-mail fast
becoming the number one plague of computer users, your software vendors
and Internet Service Provider have been erecting defenses and countermeasures
which in their zeal can even block messages you actually want to receive,
such as important communications from ETFTide.
One of the most effective ways to prevent this from happening is to include
friendly e-mail addresses in your address book. The three addresses from
which ETFTide
sends e-mails are:
-
info@etftide.com
-
sales@etftide.com
-
support@etftide.com This
easy fix frequently takes care of the problem, but to be on the safe side
and to make sure that you will actually receive our e-mail communications,
you can use the "Test communication with ETFTide"
function at the top of the "My Profile" page,
which you access after logging in. You can also specify an alternate e-mail
address on the "My Profile" page. Our E-mail notifications
will then be sent to that address too.
How
do I get started? |
|
Getting started with
the ETFTide System is very easy.
The "Getting Started" section of the "Our
Service" page provides a succinct step by step starter guide.
How
and when do I get notified about a new ETFTide Ranking?
|
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We do not send notifications
because the ETF Ranking is updated on a fixed schedule every week. The ETFTide
system is run mid-morning each trading Monday and the ETF Ranking is published
on the Web site no later than 2:00 pm ET.
Can
I access the Top 5 ETFs with my SmartPhone?
|
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A SmartPhone is a mobile
device combining the capabilities of a wireless phone with PDA-type functionality.
They let you communicate via voice or text along with the ability to access
online information so you can stay in touch while on the go.
As part of our ongoing efforts to provide our subscribers access to the
Top 5 ETFs when it is time for them to rebalance, wherever they are, ETFTide
supports SmartPhone access to the current portfolio.
In order to function with our service, the SmartPhone must be equipped with:
- Internet access
- A JavaScript-enabled
browser accepting secure pages (HTTPS protocol)
Examples of compatible
devices:
- Palm OS (version
5 or later) SmartPhones, e.g. PalmOne Treo 680
- Windows Mobile
(version 2003 or later) SmartPhones, e.g. PalmOne Treo 700
All you need to do
is enter the http://www.etftide.com/app/html?page=pda_login
URL into your SmartPhone's browser and follow the usual login steps.
How
and when do I get the Weekly Commentary? |
|
A short Weekly Commentary
is posted on the Web site and sent to active subscribers by e-mail on Mondays,
no later than 9:00 pm ET. The latest and archived commentaries can be viewed
on the "Weeklies" page after you log in.
How
should I act on your ETFTide Ranking recommendations? |
|
You have three options:
- If you are starting a new portfolio, decide how many positions you
want to trade, we recommend no fewer than 3 for diversification, and
purchase the corresponding ETFs according to the most recent ETF Ranking
- You are at the end of your rebalancing cycle (typically 4 weeks),
so you get the latest ranking from the ETFTide
Web site and trade accordingly
- You are in a middle of your rebalancing cycle, simply ignore the
recommendations, and wait until it is time to rebalance
What
do you mean by Rebalance and Rebalance Period? |
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Rebalancing is the
action of removing the ETFs which are no longer listed as top performers
on the website from your portfolio, and replacing them by the ones from
the current selection. This is typically done every 4 weeks (the Rebalancing
Period), see "When to trade after a new list has
been issued?" for more details.
When
to trade after a new list has been issued? |
|
ETFTide
system is run mid-morning each trading Monday and the ETF Ranking is published
on the Web site no later than 2:00 pm ET. When your 4 week period is up,
you should rebalance your positions as soon as possible, typically during
the same trading day. To alleviate the potential risk for opening gaps on
new recommendations, for thinly traded ETFs, we do not recommend placing
market orders before the market open. Instead, you should trade manually
after the open to wait for any significant gap to close back down. If you
cannot do that, we would recommend a "limit order" with the limit set at
say 1% above the previous closing price.
Why not rebalance more frequently than every 4 weeks? |
|
The ranking is updated
on a weekly basis to allow newcomers to build their positions without having
to wait too long between updates. Nonetheless there may be little changes
from one week to the next and our backtesting has demonstrated that rebalancing
every 4 weeks delivers good results without incurring too much trading.
Since our Model is momentum based and long-term oriented, it is unlikely
that the ranking will change dramatically from one week to the next. Anyway,
would an ETF slip a few positions, it could take a while before this impacts
the returns.
One
of my positions is not listed in the top 5 anymore, what should I
do? |
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Basically, if you follow
the recommended strategy, you should wait until it is time to rebalance
your portfolio to update your positions, as explained in the FAQ "Why
not rebalance more frequently than every 4 weeks?". The ETFs
ranking list is updated on a weekly basis, so our members can start their
own portfolio at any time. But when you are invested, all you have to do
is wait until the end of your rebalance period, typically 4 weeks, to replace
some of the positions in your portfolio.
Why
not rank all available ETFs on the ETFTide website? |
|
The key concept of
ETFTide is to diversify amongst
the top 5 market segments. If we included all ETFs we might end up with
the top 5 being concentrated in a single market segment. Our extensive testing
has demonstrated that ranking a subset which includes the major ETFs instead
of including all of them delivers better returns over time.
What
are the requirements for an ETF to be included in the ETFTide
list? |
|
The ETF needs to be
significantly representative of its sector or family to be included in the
list; we selected the most traded ETFs which could show at least one year
of history.
Should
I trade in synch with your sample portfolio? |
|
We would not recommend
it in order to avoid potential influence on the ETF price when too many
ETFTide
subscribers trade at the same time. There can be discrepancies between the
performance of the sample portfolios and your own but over time the returns
should be very similar.
How
frequently do I trade? |
|
As mentioned in "When
to trade after a new list has been issued?". Our predetermined
holding period of choice is 4 weeks; this cycle duration has demonstrated
great returns while avoiding too frequent trading. The "Average
Periodic Turnover" being around 25%, it is possible that some ETFs
will remain in the portfolio for several periods in a row.
You typically only have to trade once every 4 weeks and therefore you do
not have to check the Web site on a daily basis .
Do
you use stop losses? |
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Based on our backtesting,
it appears that implementing stop losses with the ETFTide
does not improve the overall returns. Nonetheless, during certain periods
some ETFs may experience significant drawdowns, so depending on your risk
tolerance, you may feel more comfortable implementing your own stop loss.
We would recommend not setting it lower than 8%.
The backtested ETFTide returns
displayed in the "Results"
page were obtained without the use of any stop loss.
How
does the system perform during bear markets? |
|
ETFTide
remains fully invested at all times but because it includes varied asset
classes and investments, it tends to rotate into defensive positions during
significant stock market downturns. Our backtesting has shown that in the
worst years of the most recent bear market, 2001 and 2002, our ETFTide
portfolio lost only -5.57% and +1.91% respectively as compared with -12.06%
and -21.74% for the S&P 500. Another point of mention is that in our
testing, at the end of 2001 there were less than 50 ETFs to choose from,
and many of the more defensive types such as precious metals, bonds and
currency funds did not exist yet.
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