Evidently the folks at VelocityShares decided that the shares of their inverse volatility offerings were way too pricey, because they are splitting their short term fund, XIV ten to one, and their medium term fund, ZIV by eight to one. Based on today’s closing prices of 167 for XIV and 132 for ZIV, they will both end up priced at around $16.50 after end of …
There haven’t been any new volatility ETNs or ETFs introduced for almost 4 months now, so it is about time for another wave. In April options were introduced on VelocityShares VIIX (a VXX wannabe), but it’s hard to see how these can compete effectively with VXX’s options. The funds that are attracting the most interest (and likely additional competitors) are VelocityShares’ 2X short term TVIX …
Update: XVIX was terminated by UBS. It joins the list of market strategies that backtested great but did horribly once if went live. UBS’ E-TRACS XVIX ETN was designed to take advantage of the volatility futures contango that torments Barclays’ popular VXX ETN. VXXB provides a way to go long on volatility—which in theory provides a good hedge against sudden market drops. However, since …
XIV, VelocityShares’ daily inverse volatility fund traded over 660 thousand shares Monday, surpassing its previous record of almost 550 thousand set on March 16th. It is showing an interesting volume pattern, with most days having under 100 thousand shares trading, and then surging when the market has big drops. Look at the difference between Friday’s volume and Monday’s: . .. . . . …
For updated information about SPY, IVV, and VOO’s dividend see this post. See here for my list / dates for iShare S&P related funds and here for the Russell related funds. Vanguard treats their ex-dividend dates like state secrets. See here for my estimates on Vanguard ETF ex-dividend and pay dates. .
