For updated information on SPY, IVV, and VOO dividends see this post. Some dividend related info: Excluding market action, Stock/ETF prices will drop by about the dividend amount when opening on their ex-dividend date. The equity no longer carries the value of the dividend, so it drops in value. The 500 stocks comprising the S&P index don’t go ex-dividend en-mass on the 17th, so the index …
I have written several posts on dividend capture strategies. My favored, although far from perfect strategy: Dividend capture with covered calls Some approaches I don’t recommend: SPY dividend capture ideas that don’t work Dividend capture—three approaches to skip Additional background and tools, and an example: Dividend capture overview Covered calls–are you ready? Combo orders–maximizing profits on covered calls DIA dividend capture: creating the position DIA …
Any strategy that hopes to offset down days in the market with volatility products that go up on those same days needs to figure out how much leverage the volatility product provides. A little calculation produced the equation below for computing the expected price of Citigroup’s CVOL from the VIX index quote: (VIX – 10) * 9.6 = CVOL So if the VIX jumps …
When Barclays ‘ VXX ETN first came out early last year I was pretty excited. Having an direct investment in a volatility product that didn’t have the time decay (theta) of VIX options was attractive. However, it turns out that price erosion on VXX is a huge issue—anyone that holds on for the long term becomes a loser. In spite of this, …
Bond Girl, in her blog Self Evident has been writing an interesting series about the realistic risks associated with the municipal bonds market. Her latest post on the subject is titled Differentiating between policy and debt crises.
