Assumes working knowledge of options and a willingness to learn about new things — like volatility
Update: I do not believe XXV is a good way to short VXX, or volatility in general. It has very little upside remaining (maximum value will be $40/share), see this post for more details. ********************************************************** When the XXV ETN first came out in early July there was some discussion on whether Barclays’ intent was to match the inverse of the percentage moves of the VXX, or to …
After several sell-off days with low volume, the buyers seem to be coming back. I bought SPY at 105.22, sold 27-Aug 106 calls at 0.58. Breakeven is 104.64. Maximum profit is $1.36 per share. Livevol shows the 27-Aug 106 IV’s at 28 and the 18-Sept monthly IV for the 106 calls at 24. Right now, Livevol’s IV numbers are the only ones I believe for …
Update: Barclays terminated XXV in April 2018. There is no replacement product. ********************************************************** XXV Prospectus: XXV: Barclays Inverse VolatilityETNs Usually getting the prospectus for a new ETF or ETN takes a Google search and a couple minutes of browsing. The prospectus for Barclays’ new XXV inverse volatility ETN proved to be a much more elusive search—it didn’t show up in the top 20 hits. …
Most IRAs will allow buying puts (assuming you get the appropriate approvals), even if you don’t own the underlying in the account. This opens up the field for speculative uses of options, in addition to the buttoned-down protective put strategies. Recently I had deep in the money puts and OTM covered calls on SPY in my IRA account. As expiration approached I …
The biggest downside of covered calls is their lack of downside protection on the underlying. A big, but not unusually big correction can wipe out many months worth of profits. One strategy for reducing this exposure is to buy puts, but when I have looked into this strategy in the past the puts were either so expensive they ate up all the profits, …
