It was not obvious (at least to me) that volatility theoretically scales with the square root of time (sqrt[t]). For example, if the market’s daily volatility is 0.5%, then theoretically the correct value of volatility for two days is the square root of 2 times the daily volatility (0.5% * 1.414 = 0.707%), or for a 5 day stretch 0.5% * sqrt(5) = 1.118%. This …
UPDATE Credit Suisse has terminated XIV due to a greater than 80% drop in its indicative value on 5-Feb-2018. The final payout was $5.99 per share. The last day of trading was the 15th of February. For more on what caused XIV’s crash see this post, for more info on the XIV termination process see this post. ————————————————————————————————————————————— VelocityShares’ XIV and its sister fund ZIV …
When I first saw a chart similar to the one below in Business Insider I was immediately suspicious. For example I knew that May through September of 2009 was a period of rapid growth (21%) yet that surge did not seem to show up on the bottom curve (green)—which shows the performance of staying in the market only May through September. It turns out …
In August CBOE started trading their S&P 500® Range Options (ticker SRO). These options replicate a condor position on the SPX with a single transaction. According the CBOE these are call only condors, not iron condors. You can see the options chain for these if you go to the CBOE quote page and enter in SRO in the left side dialog box. Neither Schwab, …
The market stumble the end of last week dropped the Russell 2000 enough for Frank Roellinger’s Modified Davis Method to signal a 50% sell. That portion of the portfolio gained 17.6% since being opened 30-November-2012. This exit was foreshadowed in the Modified David Method-March 2014 Update. The other half of the portfolio, initiated in July 2009, is still long with a 57% open gain—market breadth has …
