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 …
Schwab has released version 1.8.7.0 of StreetSmart Edge for download on their website. You can tell your current version by looking for the “current build” note in the upper right hand corner of the display. Be sure to save your layouts before you update, because when you update you lose your current customization and have to restore them. Schwab doesn’t publish what defects …
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 …
Schwab continues to roll out more information about its new trading platform. This website adds some demos, system requirements, some FAQs, and an invitation to join a live webcast on March 8th. In the FAQs, Schwab says there are no plans to retire StreetSmart Pro, but there are no such assurances about StreetSmart.com. Hopefully Scwhab has designed StreetSmart Edge so that it can evolved …
Apparently Vanguard likes to keep their ETF ex-dividend and distribution dates a secret until just a couple days before the event. It has that old mutual fund feel to it—”we’ll give you a quote after-market and allow you to buy or sell our stuff at the end of the day, otherwise go away…” As a result, the dates below are just guesses, based on previous year’s …
