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Ex-Dividend Dates for Russell ETFs: IWM, IWP, IWB,IWZ,IWR,IWD,IWV,IWS,IWO,IWW, IWC

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Ex-Dividend Dates for Russell ETFs: IWB, IWC, IWD, IWM, IWO, IWP, IWR, IWS, IWV, IWZ, IWV, IWS, IWO, IWW

IWM went ex-dividend 22-Dec-2011 with a payout of $0.3595 per share.

Based on this Ishares  distribution schedule, I expect the next ex-Dividend, pay dates for these ETFs to be:

EX-DATE : 23-Mar-12   26-Jun-12   24-Sep-12   19-Dec-12  27-Dec (potential)
PAY DATE: 29-Mar-12  2-Jul-12   28-Sep-12  26-Dec-12   3-Jan (potential)

.
IWB  iShares Russell 1000 Index Fund (IWB)
IWC  iShares Russell Microcap® Index Fund (IWC)
IWD  iShares Russell 1000 Value Index Fund (IWD)
IWF  iShares Russell 1000 Growth Index Fund (IWF)
.
IWM  iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (IWM)   22-Dec-2011 Dividend  $0.3595
.
IWN  iShares Russell 2000 Value Index Fund (IWN)
IWO  iShares Russell 2000 Growth Index Fund (IWO)
IWP  iShares Russell Midcap Growth Index Fund (IWP)
IWR  iShares Russell Midcap Index Fund (IWR)
IWS  iShares Russell Midcap Value Index Fund (IWS)
IWV  iShares Russell 3000 Index Fund (IWV)
IWW  iShares Russell 3000 Value Index Fund (IWW)
IWZ  iShares Russell 3000 Growth Index Fund (IWZ)

If you don’t see the ETF symbol you want there are a lot more here: Dividend, Ex-Dividend, and Paydate / Distribution Date information for ETFs

Posted in all, dividend, ex-dividend, Mainstream, master | 1 Comment »

12 January 2010 correction–two more days to go?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

A long over due correction (in my opinion) started today.   I’m expecting (hoping) that it goes on for two or three more days.

SPY 40 day chart, click on chart to enlarge

SPY 40 day chart, click on chart to enlarge

Posted in all, Mainstream | No Comments »

Countdown to new options symbols

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Schwab plans to implement the first phase of the option symbol change-over the 23rd of January.   I’m assuming their software has already been updated and they just need to flip some switch for our client software to start supporting the new format.    This will take some getting used to.

A good friend like a SPY January 114 call  symbol:  SPYAJ, will become:

  • Within Schwab’s systems: “SPY 01/16/2010 114.00 C”       (<symbol> <MM/DD/YYYY> <whole dollar strike>.<2 digit decimal> <C or P>)
  • Generic, industry standard format: “SPY 100116C00114000″     (<symbol> <YYMMDD>  <C or P><5 digit whole dollar strike><3 digit decimal>).


Schwab’s approach is reasonable enough, but I really hate their date symbol choice–it is a very USA centric approach.   To me day-month-year is a much more reasonable format.   I use day, 3 letter month, year notation (e.g., 16-Jan-2010) when I write dates–knowing that I will be understood the world over.

The generic symbol is awkward enough (I think year, month, day is non-intuitive, and who wants to deal with 8 digit strike prices?), that I suspect all major brokers will create their internal easier to use symbols.   Of course they will all be different.

Posted in all, Mainstream, Options | No Comments »

Are we reliving 2004? Daily level correlation with SPY…

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Last November I posted regarding the interesting correlation (at the day of the month level) between SPY prices in 2003 and 2009. I updated that analysis with the last 44 days of data and things still line up surprisingly well.   Six years later to the day, the SPY closing values are just slightly over  a percent from  each other (112.93 vs 114.19).  The normalized volumes are still tracking, and visually at least it looks like the recent decrease in real volatility is mirroring what happened in January 2004.    If this correlation keeps up we won’t see real volatility kick up for another 3 weeks.  The black vertical line marks where my data stopped on my 1-Nov-09 post.

SPY price and normalized volume comparison, click to enlarge

SPY price and normalized volume comparison, click to enlarge

Posted in Mainstream | No Comments »

2004 Redux?

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

The 12 year chart below shows some interesting correlations between the beginnings of the 2003–20007 bull market and now. In fact the months and SPY values lines up almost exactly. The 2003 bull started in March, and in January 2004 was trading at the 113/114 level (vertical black line) that we are at now. Not that history has to repeat itself, but I think the market psychology is similar. Right now I can’t bring myself to be bullish, there have been way too many days without any meaningful corrections. I’m at about 80% cash.

12 year chart of SPY

12 year chart of SPY, click to enlarge

Posted in all, Mainstream | No Comments »

Trading in IRA accounts, and avoiding “free riding”

Monday, January 4th, 2010

As much as possible I try to trade in my IRA accounts—in order to defer taxes of course. It is a bit counter intuitive to be doing more speculative activities in a retirement account, but this approach supports my goals:

  • Achieving good returns
  • With reasonable risks
  • While compounding growth

If your money is in Roth accounts, all the better, but most people interested in trading in their IRAs are restricted to traditional IRAs.

There are restrictions on what trades you can do in an IRA account.  For example you can’t short a stock in an IRA account, but option restrictions have eased some over the years,  and market innovations like short ETFs (e.g., SH, SDS) have effectively bypassed some of the more onerous restrictions.    Brokers vary in what they allow in IRA accounts, so pays to ask around.   Fidelity for example allows me to do some types of equity option spreads, while Schwab does not.   Covered calls and protective puts on long positions are broadly available within IRAs.

Read More

Posted in all, Covered Calls, dividend, Featured, Mainstream, Options, Popular Post | 9 Comments »

Projections for 2010

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

As much as I wish there was a system that we could turn the crank and make lots of money on the markets, I think the market is too good for that to work.  We are reduced to educated guesswork.  Some guesses:

  • The S&P 500 will move from its astonishing trendline to a slightly down trending sideways market for 6 months before it starts moving up in a sustained fashion.  I project the SPY low will be at around 100, 10% off recent highs. The chart below indicates we have already moved off of the trendline. This guess is based on what happened in somewhat similar situations in 1999 and 2004 (big uptrends after significant bottoms).  Click on graph to enlarge.

12 year look at SPY

  • The VIX index will continue its downward trend, but the rate of decay will slow.   Lows around 16 by the end of 2010.

  • Interest rates  will increase.   This prediction seems like a no-brainer, but as usual the timing is the trick.    It seems that there is very little risk that interest rates will go down this year.  We should be able to make money on that.

  • The price of oil will continue to go up.   Reviving economies will consume more oil, and the oil producers will be happy to let that happen. But don’t expect another bubble–it takes people longer than a year to forget the bubble collapse in any given asset.

  • Manufacturing will continue to lead us out of this recession.  Real estate, especially high end residential and commercial will not get healthy this year.   Job-less recovery and real-estate hang-over will keep consumers from helping much until the 2nd half of the year.

Posted in all, Mainstream, VIX | No Comments »

How to go long on the VIX index

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

For the average investor there are three, not so attractive ways to go long on VIX:

  1. Buy Barclays’ VXX (short term) or VXZ (medium term) ETNs or one of their competitors (8 as of January 2011) that have jumped into this market.   See volatility ticker for a full list.
  2. Buy VXX or VXZ call options  (recently ProShares VIXY and VIXM began offering options too)
  3. Buy VIX call options / short VIX put options

Posted in Advanced Topics, all, Featured, Options, Popular Post, VIX | 10 Comments »

Getting the correct greeks for VIX options

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Most software packages that report option greeks (e.g., delta, gamma, theta, implied volatility) report incorrect values for VIX options. Depending on the date and state of the market they can vary from almost correct to widely wrong–giving truly nonsense numbers.  These packages assume that  the VIX index is the underlying for the VIX options.   This is wrong.   The true underlying is the corresponding VIX future for that month (e.g., January VIX futures for January VIX options).

Chris McKhann notes that LIVEVOL provides free delayed quotes that include correctly computed greeks for VIX options.

Read More

Posted in Advanced Topics, all, Options, VIX | No Comments »

Trading VIX options

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

If you want to trade options on fear there are few things you should know:

  1. Your brokerage account needs to be a margin account, and you need to sign up for options trading.   There are various levels of option trading available (e.g., the first level allows covered calls).  My experience is that to trade VIX options you will need to be authorized to trade at the second level.  These levels vary from brokerage to brokerage, so you will have to ask what is required to be long  VIX options.  If you are just getting into options trading this is as high as you want to go anyway. Selling naked calls for example is not something for a rookie to try. Read More

Posted in Advanced Topics, all, Options, VIX | No Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

SYMBOL Next Ex-dividend More Info
DIA 20-Jan-12 SPDR
DVY 26-Mar-26 iShare
IVV 26-Mar-12 iShare
IWM 23-Mar-12 Russell
JNK 1-Feb-12 SPDR
IEF,HYG,LQD 1-Feb-12 iShares
OEF 26-Mar-12 iShares
SCHX 19-Mar-12 Schwab
SPY 16-Mar-12 SPY
VIG 23-Mar-12 (est) Vanguard
VOO 23-Mar-12 (est) Vanguard
XLU 16-Mar-12 SPDR
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