I am referring to Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which have been around for years, but have grown tremendously since their inception. There are currently over 100 choices with around $10 billion in assets.

In a nutshell, an ETF is a specific kind of no-load mutual fund that you might consider to be a basket of stocks. ETFs are diversified like mutual funds, only they trade like stocks. They are cheap to trade (as low as $8.00) and don’t hit you with any short-term redemption fees. And they offer investing opportunities across board.

ETFs track every index under sun including S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, The Russell 2000 and many others. Available through any discount broker, they basically fall into one of three categories: broad-based U.S. indexes, sectors and international.

The have esoteric names such as iShares, StreetTracks, HOLDRs and SPYDRs. The difference is in index they are tracking and company marketing them. You will see big name companies offering them, like American Stock Exchange, Barclay’s Global Investors, Vanguard, and State Street Global Investors.

In my newsletter I track currently most appropriate ETFs for you to consider. For more detailed information you can visit these web sites:

www.nasdaq.com www.amex.com www.ishares.com

In addition to inexpensive trades and no short-term redemption fees, how else can ETFs save you money vs. no load mutual funds? One way is on their annual management fees. That fee for ETFs is in area of 0.45% vs. 1.5% on average for no load mutual funds. The fees charged by discount broker are so low they almost can be disregarded, usually less than 0.1% of transaction.

What do world’s best Traders differently than average investor? Can average investor learn from Trader Legend’s success stories and their systems used? What do most famous Traders have in common that can be applied by average talented trader?

Before we will give some insights on those questions let’s have a look at some of most successful Trader Legends:

ØNicolas Darvas turned an $ 36’000 account into $ 2’000’000 in 18 months!!! ØEd Seykota, a Turtle Trader, turned $ 5'000 into $ 15'000'000 in 12 years!!! ØJesse Livermore made several multi-million dollar fortunes in early 1900's ØRichard Dennis, another Turtle Trader, made between $ 100 and $ 200 million ØGeorge Soros is believed to be one of greatest Trader of all time!!!

The results are quite impressive and some other amazing Traders could be added easily to list above. Why do these guys have such tremendous results?

There are common factors, which can be observed through most of successful Trader Legends:

ØThey have a System which they strictly follow. ØMost of them have a trend-following trading style. ØMost of them have a mid- to long-term approach. ØThey have no fear and greed mentality. ØThey have absolute discipline and stick 100% to their system. ØTheir trades are fully planed; they are prepared for all scenarios in advance. ØThey know that a system goes through bad times and good times. Cut losses early and let profits run. ØTheir systems fit to their personality.

Some of these points sound logical and I see people nodding their heads. But in reality average investor behaves completely different. Some of them burned their fingers over last three years and some even lost a fortune. Here are some examples of observed behaviour patterns: