That makes no sense that TD Ameritrade expects you to adhere to a 30-day holding period. Are you sure that is correct? EFTs trade like stocks. The 30-day rule is typical of mutual funds, but not ETFs. Basic ETFs are trusts that hold an index of funds and trade like stocks - they have lower hidden fees than mutual funds as there is no active manager.
When I trade ETFs, I do it on the short-term and flip the 3X leveraged EFTs. These should not be held long as they have inherent problems and have been proven to be scams over longer holding periods (just pull up a long period comparison of NUGT and DUST and you will see what I mean). Over a max holding period of 5-days, they are fine. To see all the 3x ETFs, go into Bar Charts ETF section and search for "3X" as the name. In your list, you should see the popular ones such as NUGT, DUST, CURE, and UGAZ. Note that some of these are extremely volatile - some in the trading business refer to UGAZ as the widow-maker.
If you are going long a year, don't buy a leveraged ETF. To evaluate ETFs, use bar charts to search for what you are look for. There are literally thousands of ETFs that now trade. Basically, you can trade any index or sector you want via an ETF. I like ETFs - I use them in my RRSP rather than using mutual funds as the internal fees are lower and index funds beat managed funds historically.
Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Only trade for the sake of trading.
