If you are looking for low risk yields above 1.5% per year, there aren’t many attractive candidates. Stocks seem risky, and if you believe that interest rates are going to go up in the next couple of years then bonds look risky too. Using IEF, Ishares’ 7 to 10 year US treasury bond fund as a example of risk—it is currently yielding 2.21%. Sensitivity …
As of next Monday, July 11th VZZ, Barclays’ iPath® Long Enhanced S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures will stop trading. It is already a zombie because its termination price has already been set at $10 even. XXV, the other volatility zombie continues to trade on average 100,000 shares a day—maybe people are content to just beat T-bills and not much else. See these posts for more details on …
All of the volatility based ETN/ETF products are relatively new. Barclays’ VXX and VXZ oldsters started in January 2009—just a few months before the end of the 2008/2009 crash. This lack of historical data over full market cycles makes it hard to assess the risks associated with new products—such as VelocityShares’ ZIV (medium-term inverse volatility) which started in November 2010. test I have backtested ZIV starting from …
See this post for updated dividend information for IVV and VOO.
Evidently the folks at VelocityShares decided that the shares of their inverse volatility offerings were way too pricey, because they are splitting their short term fund, XIV ten to one, and their medium term fund, ZIV by eight to one. Based on today’s closing prices of 167 for XIV and 132 for ZIV, they will both end up priced at around $16.50 after end of …
