The CBOE’s VIX index gets mainstream exposure as the “fear index”, but there’s a lot more to volatility watching than the VIX. The VIX does a good job of measuring the current level of anxiety in the market, but it has some problems. Among other things it’s: Not a good predictor of the future Often does not move in the direction people expect (opposite the …
The volume of CBOE’s Weeklyssm options has grown rapidly since they expanded their listings into equities and Exchange Traded Products in June 2010. Now weekly options comprise almost 30% of the CBOE’s average daily option volume. The list of available weekly options is available on the CBOE website. Among other things, option traders take advantage of the Weeklys to position themselves for earnings releases, harvest rapid …
On Friday, December 14th, Credit Suisse announced a 10:1 reverse split of TVIX, effective the 21st. I had pretty much given up on TVIX because its price had slid way past the logical reverse split point and has traded below $1 for the last 16 trading days. However instead of fading to black TVIX is now back into a reasonable trading range. In February 2012 Credit Suisse …
It’s been over 10 years since VXX, the first volatility exchange-traded product arrived on the market. Since then 36 additional funds, using both Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) structures have been introduced. Terminations and closures have whittled that list down to 17 (as of 23-May-2019). The remaining funds can be segmented into four major categories: VIX Trackers Hybrid Strategies Inverse Volatility …
With the expectation of tax changes next year some companies have been declaring eye popping special dividends, for example AOL is giving out $5.15 and Costco $7. Intuitively it seems there should be some way to profit from these events, but as is always the case with Wall Street, there is never anything that approaches a free lunch. At open on the ex-dividend day a …
