Thanks for your comment.... I expect ETH to rise again at some point, and provide pretty good gains. I just don't know when though. For me, it has a lot to do with (1) when the switch to proof of stake becomes more concrete (2) whether the inflation schedule decreases before then, and (3) hype building for the release of metropolis.
Once or twice, i thought to trade my BTC for some ripple during a downturn because sometimes in the past there's been a negative correlation. But more recently I've found ripple has gone down more!....and personally I really dont like the concept of it - so although I've traded it sometimes, I still don't ever really want to hold it :)
There are other exchanges which provide much better liquidity for trading BTC or ETH against USD.... e.g gdax, bitfinex, Kraken, bistamp. On occasion I've tried USDT but the liquidity is no good if you're trying to trade something like $50k of BTC :)