By Nigel Hawkes, President, Hawkeye Traders*

Many thousands of words have been written on volume over the years, but its secrets elude many traders. Until a trader has a full understanding and appreciation of volume, though, it is my considered opinion that he or she will be making judgments that do not take into account the basic “supply and demand” of the market.

Probably the greatest proponent of volume was Richard Wyckoff, who, in the early 20th century, read the ticker tapes using volume as his lead indicator. It is quite remarkable that, at that same time, two other great traders, Elliott and Gann, were also making their mark as great traders.

By Michael Paulenoff of MPTrader.com*
Posted: May 16, 2008

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) enable investors to participate in directional moves in a range of subsets of the major market indices. ETFs have been developed for essentially every U.S. industry, many countries, commodities, Treasuries, currencies and even the inverse (short side) of many of these market areas.

I trade ETFs with a short-term horizon, of one session to two weeks, identifying directional price movement from 2 - 8% based on 1) technical chart analysis, 2) fundamentals underlying those charts, and 3) my perception of what the macro-economic and geo-political worlds look like.