Update: On June 18, 2015 the CBOE announced that they would be discontinuing VXST futures and options. These products have not achieved significant volumes so this wasn’t a surprising outcome. As an alternative solution to the desire for options better tracking the VIX the CBOE has added weekly expirations of futures and options to the already hugely popular 30 day VIX futures. This approach has …
VXX hasn’t hit a new low in 6 weeks, and it’s not because the market is crashing. What has changed is the shape of the VIX futures term structure—the underlying futures that the various volatility Exchange Traded Products (ETP) like VXX, XIV, TVIX, and ZIV are based on (see volatility tickers for the entire list). For most of 2009 through 2012 the monthly roll cost …
The VIX style calculation for the March 22nd SPX options closed today at 17.06. The data is from the CBOE’s VIX Term Structure website. The CBOE will use the March SPX options to compute the settlement value for the February VIX Futures when they expire on February 19th. February VIX futures, on the other hand closed at 16.25, a 5% discount to the March SPX …
Proshares has announced a 1:5 reverse split, effective the morning 11-April-2024. Some people seem to anticipate that there will be significant price moves in UVXY, motivated by a reverse split. I’m not in that camp. UVXY’s price is tied to VIX futures’ price, which couldn’t care less about UVXY’s share price. A long time ago it was common for stocks to have sizeable run-ups motivated …
If you are short call options in a stock or an Exchange Traded Product (ETP) like SPY or IWM you need to be aware of ex-dividend dates. If your calls are in the money, even barely, your options may be assigned right before the security goes ex-dividend—and then you may have a problem. For example, let’s say you hold a credit call spread position: short …
