Backtest of VXX Volatility ETN From 2004 Including Yearly Fees

Volatility based Exchange Traded Funds and Notes (ETF / ETN) have only been on the market for a few years (see volatility tickers for the full list of USA based funds).  The oldest one, Barclays’ VXX only started trading in late January 2009.   Because of their relative youth, we don’t have actual trade data on how they would have performed through critical periods—for example, …

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Backtests for Popular Long & Short Volatility Exchange Traded Products

I have generated the end of day trading day values for the most  popular long and short volatility Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) for March 26th, 2004 through the end of the most recent quarter.  See this table for specifics. +1.5X UVXY  ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (includes old 2X simulation) VXX     Barclays S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN VXZ     Barclays S&P …

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The Volatility Term Structure is Driven by OTM Puts

The CBOE’s VIX® methodology calculates a single theoretically grounded number that quantifies virtually the entire volatility landscape for a specific point in time—pretty cool.  Prices for hundreds of different options with different expiration dates can be involved in the calculation.   This single number is very useful, but obviously, lots of information is discarded in the distillation.  I’ve wondered if the VIX’s compression is hiding some information …

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TVIX’s Last Reverse Split, Number 7—December 2nd, 2019

Update Effective July 2nd, 2020 TVIX stopped trading on national exchanges (press release). The issuer, Credit Suisse (CS) halted share creations effective July 3rd, 2020 but is not terminating the fund. They reserve the right to do so but don’t have to until 2030. TVIX is currently trading on OTC exchanges, e.g., OTCMarkets.com and is currently trading relatively close to its IV price, the theoretic value of …

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Next VXX Reverse Split (No. 8) —July 24th, 2024 2023

VXX’s next reverse split will be July 24, 2024, at a four to one ratio. For a security doomed to decrease in value over time Barclays’ VXX does amazingly well.  Its volume averages over 12 million shares per day and its assets under management had stayed around $800 million to $1.5 billion until an ugly 2022, were it had to cease share creations for 6 …

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