How Did the Old -1X SVXY Work

Update  As of February 28th, 2018 SVXY will target -0.5 leverage instead of -1X.  This change was in response to the events of February 5th, 2018 when a massive VIX futures spike occurred in the last 30 minutes of trading, probably in part due to the rebalancing required by the 2X UVXY and -1X SVXY funds.  This change to SVXY will reduce its rebalancing requirements …

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How Do Bitcoin Futures Work?

The CME, a well-respected, USA-regulated futures exchange, has been trading BitCoin futures since December 2017.  These futures make it possible to trade on Bitcoin’s value without being exposed to the uncertainties of the mostly unregulated Bitcoin exchanges. To understand Bitcoin futures you need to recognize, among some other things, that these futures are not in the business of predicting Bitcoin’s price. Bitcoin Futures are Not Trying …

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A Better Way to Model the VIX

Models are useful. They help us understand the world around us and aid us in predicting what will happen next. But it’s important to remember that models don’t necessarily reflect the underlying reality of the thing we’re modeling. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system assumed the Earth was the center of everything but in spite of that spectacular error, it did a good job of …

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How do VelocityShares’ EVIX and EXIV Work?

Update UBS decided to shutdown their EVIX & EXIV long / inverse volatility funds that are based on the European VSTOXX volatility futures effective April 9, 2020   I suspect this occurred because they never gathered enough assets to be profitable. In May 2017 VelocityShares introduced two volatility funds, EXIV and EVIX, which track European volatility futures.  In digging into these funds I’ve encountered a dense …

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