UPDATE Credit Suisse has terminated XIV due to a greater than 80% drop in its indicative value on 5-Feb-2018. The final payout was $5.99 per share. The last day of trading was the 15th of February. For more on what caused XIV’s crash see this post, for more info on the XIV termination process see this post. ————————————————————————————————————————————— VelocityShares’ XIV and its sister fund ZIV …
When I first saw a chart similar to the one below in Business Insider I was immediately suspicious. For example I knew that May through September of 2009 was a period of rapid growth (21%) yet that surge did not seem to show up on the bottom curve (green)—which shows the performance of staying in the market only May through September. It turns out …
It’s been about 7 months since my article on The Modified Davis Method first appeared, so it’s time for an update. Here is the original chart updated through 3/28/14. As before, the top (white) line is the method’s results; the yellow line is the Value Line/Russell 2000 series; the green line is the S&P 500 for reference. The method is still 100% long after the last …
We don’t have good metaphors to help us understand the short-selling of equities. It’s easy to understand a straight “long” investment. For example, planting a garden is a reasonable analogy—it involves buying seeds, planting them, and in due time there is a payoff—or not. But in real life people rarely borrow something, immediately sell it, and hope to buy it back at a cheaper price. …
Update Due to low demand, the CBOE discontinued VXST options and futures. The VXST index, renamed the VIX9D, continues to be active. The CBOE went on to introduce weekly versions of its popular 30-day VIX futures which have been marginally successful. _______________________________________________________________________________________ VIX9D Indexes On October 1st, 2013 the CBOE introduced the VXST index. VXST, later renamed to VIX9D. It uses the same methodology as …
