Jim Van Meerten

Income ETFs: Higher-Yielding Investing Ideas

Gary,

Thanks so much for commenting on my article on the MSN Strategy Lab. Some of your readers asked some questions I'd like to address. I've been entering some of these online contests just to test out my theory that you can make money by closely following the market, buy what is moving now and protect your hunches with stop losses. I never sell just to make room for something that is doing better.

I use Barchart.com for my screener because it is so easy to use and I found it on Forbes Best of the Web recommendations. I buy those ETF's that increased the most last month but only if I can chart them and see that they are still having upward momentum. When they fail to stay above their 50 day moving average they are culled and if there are ETF's that meet my buy criteria, I replace them.

Since the Strategy Lab only gives me $100K to work with, I try to buy around 20 positions at $5K each. If I can't find a positions that meets my criteria I'll let that ride in cash until something comes up in my screener.

In stock long and short portfolios I use the same logic except I get my stocks off of Barchart 65 day new High/Low lists and then sort for frequency.

I don't think my theory could be used in a 100 million dollar mutual fund (you can't sail a battleship using speedboat tactics) but it can be used effectively by the average investor that wants to manage his own portfolio with a minimum of expense.

Thanks again or writing about my picks.

Jim Van Meerten
The Amateur Msn.com Strategy Lab

Contributor on:
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Marketocracy.com
SeekingAlpha.com
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