Deathwatch for Barclays’ IVOP short volatility ETN

It hasn’t been a good ride for Barclay’s IVOP.   It was introduced September 16th at $20, and now 19 days later it is trading at $11.4— a 43% drop.   Since IVOP is a effectively a short on volatility instead of tracking daily percentage moves like its competitors (e.g, VelocityShares’ XIV) it has a variable leverage behavior.   With VXX currently at 58.5 IVOP’s …

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The Volatility Landscape

News CBOE The CBOE plans to extend VIX® Futures trading by over 5 hours—aligning with the London Stock Exchange open, and adding a 45 minute post settlement trading period 4:30 ET to 5:15 ET Monday through Thursday. Two new volatility indexes, DLVIX and DSVIX are documented on the CBOE website.   These indexes were developed in cooperation with the French bank Société Générale and are now …

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Tracking the VIX Index—TVIX and UVXY Are Close

For a long time investors have been frustrated in their desire to directly invest in the VIX index.  Now three ETNs, one by design, and the two other perhaps by accident are tracking (or out-performing) the VIX index on both a daily percentage move basis and for multi-day holding times. Historically the daily percentage moves of short term (1/2 month) volatility ETNs like VXX tend …

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A spread before the Fed

I opened a S122/S123 spread today with SPY calls this morning for a net credit of 0.44.   Right now I think there is more downside risk than up, and if I’m wrong and the market rallies my long XIV position will more than make up for my 0.56 worst case loss.   Initially I put in my order as AON (all or none) at …

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Barclays’ inverse volatility ETN: IVOP

The termination of IVO left a hole in Barclays’ inverse volatility ETN lineup.   It still has XXV, but its leverage is only around 0.25 right now, so they needed a higher leverage solution that can compete with the likes of UBS’ AAVX, or VelocityShares‘ XIV—which always give 1X daily leverage. IVOP had an inception date of September 16th, 2011 with an initial value of …

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