CVOL—the Other Volatility Kid on the Block

UPDATE CVOL was shutdown by UBS in May of 2016.  It never achieved enough assets for it to be a viable competitor     CVOL’s  stated goal is to “produce returns that are correlated to the CBOE Volatility Index (the “VIX Index”). ”   So far no one has figured out a way to offer a direct investment in the VIX Index, so volatility traders must …

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One of these correlations is going to fail

Since November 2009 I have been commenting on the eerie day to day correlation between the market (specifically SPY)  of 2003/2004 and 2009/2010.    These charts continue to track with November 16th’s closing value of SPY (118.16) differing only 0.28 points from SPY’s closing (117.88) on November 16th, 2004—six years ago.       Recently I noticed another correction with the past—the market rally beginning in …

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Monthly ETF Dividend Amounts

Tickers covered:  AGG, BIL, SCJ, HYG, IEF, INY, JNK, LAG, LQD, MUB, PFF, TIP, TLT For dividend history data and charts from 2005 on click here. You can use the search window within the post (upper right) to search for a specific ticker, or increase the number of entries to show in the upper right box to 25 in order to see all the symbols. …

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And then there were 35

This week CBOE expanded their selection of  weekly options from 31 to 35.   The symbols added this week (expiring November 5th) are:  IBM PCLN RIMM SLV.   All these except PCLN (Priceline.com Inc.) have previously been on the list at some point.   For more on the CBOE’s weekly options see here,  or see my guest post in the August issue of the online …

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XXV: Dancing the contango—without getting mugged

Update  redirected to https://www.sixfigureinvesting.com/2010/04/going-short-on-vix/ I do not recommend XXV.  At its current price of around $30/share  it does not deliver the sort of performance you would expect an inverse volatility security to deliver.   This security can go no higher than $40 per share and can only get there slowly.  See this post for more information.   If you want to be short volatility use XIV …

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