Previously I’ve done simulations, based on VIX futures, of volatility Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) back to 2004. In these simulations, I only generated the closing values, but since then I’ve had requests for open/high/low (OHL) values. I’ve extended my backtests to generate ETP opening and intraday highs and lows for many of the short and medium-term volatility funds—specifically VXX, VIXY, TVIX, UVXY (1.5X & 2X), …
It’s expensive to buy securities that track volatility. Their holding costs are so high that your timing has to be exquisite in order to end up with a profit. However, if you’re hedging a short volatility position, or poised to jump into the general market at a possible transition point a long volatility position might make sense. Consider this chart: Will the S&P 500 bounce …
The Cboe did not create the VIX® as an academic exercise, or as a service to stock market prognosticators everywhere. They created it because they wanted to make money on volatility. It took them two tries, but the Cboe succeeded in developing a volatility index that forms the backbone of a host of volatility products. The Cboe offers some of these products, but other companies have …
It was not obvious (at least to me) that volatility theoretically scales with the square root of time (sqrt[t]). For example, if the market’s daily volatility is 0.5%, then theoretically the correct value of volatility for two days is the square root of 2 times the daily volatility (0.5% * 1.414 = 0.707%), or for a 5 day stretch 0.5% * sqrt(5) = 1.118%. This …
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 …
