TVIX Gets a New Lease on Life

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 …

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USA Volatility Funds Categorized and Ranked

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 …

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Profiting from Special Dividends: What Won’t Work, What Might

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 …

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Top 15 Questions about Trading in an IRA

Based on searches that lead people to Six Figure Investing, these are the top investment questions people ask about IRAs.  For definitive answers to tax questions in your specific circumstances please consult a tax professional. General Why trade in an IRA?   Because it allows you to defer or avoid taxes on dividends and capital gains—all of your profits can be reinvested tax-free. What trading restrictions/rules …

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How Much Should We Expect the VIX to Move?

Every couple of months it seems like there’s an uptick in articles about the CBOE’s VIX Index being broken or manipulated.   Generally I expect the percentage moves in the VIX to be around a factor of 4 in the opposite direction of SPX (S&P 500).  But there are significant eccentricities in the VIX that I factor in, for example Fridays tend to be down days, …

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