Assumes working knowledge of options and a willingness to learn about new things — like volatility
Based on searches that lead people to Six Figure Investing, these are the top 11 questions people ask about dividends: When is XYZ’s ex-dividend date? This information can be hard to find. Some companies provide the entire year’s dates on their webside (e.g., iShares), others like Vanguard only reveal the information a few days before the ex-dividend occurs. I have summarized / estimated ex-dividend dates …
Bill Luby, of VIX and more, recently pointed out that the 1st / 2nd month volatility futures had recently set a record (now 70 days) for continuous time spent in backwardation—where the value of the 1st month is higher than the 2nd month. Not just a trivia question, this condition has been feathering the pockets of those holding volatility ETNs like VXX / TVIX, …
In spite of its name, XIV is not the inverse of the VIX index—it is the daily percentage inverse of an index called SPVXSP, which you can monitor on Bloomberg here. This index very closely tracks the same index that VXX uses, SPVXSTR. Last week XIV did not track VXX’s daily moves particularly well. There has been a lot of speculation about what was causing …
I was very surprised Monday morning when sentiment turned around and the market went into decline. Perhaps people were nervous that the House wouldn’t approve the budget proposal, but it seems more likely mixed economic news prevented any sort of euphoric reaction, or people realized that an agreement to add another trillion or two of debt really isn’t cause for celebration. I held onto my …
With Greece’s Euro problems successfully extended out a few more months, and the economy continuing to consistently send mixed messages, the focus of fear is the budget cap. I’m thinking neither party has the stomach for the wholesale disruption of the Treasury’s affairs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one more major upswing in the VIX, but right now the prospect of a happy ending …
