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Andy Crowder: Many professional options traders don’t really care about options prices or volume. They only care about volatility. That’s because volatility is the single biggest factor for any given options contract. Read more…
[The following first appeared in the December 2010 edition of Expiring Monthly: The Option Traders Journal. I thought I would share it partly because I have an article, “Synthetic Seasonal VIX-VXX Arb,” which appears in the just published January 2012 issue of Expiring Monthly that Read more…
Bill Luby: The more I think about it, the less I understand the need for even more low volatility ETPs. Sure, I understand that in high volatility markets many investors want a more conservative portfolio Read more…
Bill Luby: Based on some of the questions and comments that came out of Wednesday’s Three New Risk Control ETFs from Direxion, there appears to be a significant portion of the investment community that is uncertain about just how some ETPs are attempting to dampen volatility and control risk. Read more…
John Townsend: I’d like to introduce you to an acquaintance of mine. I call him the Dinosaur of Sentiment, the Sentimental Dinosaur and just plain T-Rex for short. His real name, however, sounds Read more…
Bill Luby: With the political season heating up, it seemed like an opportune time to work “normalcy” into one of my posts again and what better way to do that than by putting under the microscope one of my favorite overlooked indices: the CBOE S&P 500 3-Month Volatility Index, which I typically Read more…
Michael Johnston: Between the beginning of the second half of 2011 and the middle of December, few exchange-traded products endured a tougher stretch than the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short Term ETN (XIV); the exchange-traded note plummeted last summer as the “fear index” spiked Read more…
John Nyaradi: 2012 will likely bring plenty of fear to global stock markets and now ETFs present opportunities to profit when fear runs high. 2012 is off to a fast start with a quick rally in global indexes and plenty of uncertainty surrounding events in the Persian Gulf and the ongoing, seemingly never Read more…
Michael Johnston: This time last year, investors were generally thrilled with the performances of their portfolios, which had continued to bounce back nicely from the devastating recession that hit in 2008. Unfortunately, few are feeling the same sense of accomplishment as 2011 draws to a close; this Read more…
Bill Luby: The year is not quite over, but I can safely predict that it when it is in the books, there will be no doubt that 2011 has been a bull market for VIX exchange-traded products (ETPs). After seeing two VIX ETPs launched in 2009 and ten in 2010, this year has witnessed the launch of 20 VIX ETPs. Read more…
Michael Johnston: The vast majority of the 1,300+ exchange-traded products now available to U.S. investors are alike in that they offer static exposure to a specific asset class, whether it be stocks, bonds Read more…
Eric Dutram: Many investors have had a rough time so far in 2011 as a number of issues have plagued markets around the world. European debt crises appear to be in the news every other day while an increasingly large number of emerging markets appear to be abandoning their focus on fighting inflation. Read more…
Michael Johnston: September was one of the worst months in years for global equity markets. Volatility swept throughout every corner of the financial markets as escalating Euro zone debt woes worried investors of an impending crisis. Investor confidence has been slowly eroding given the concerning global Read more…
Direxion, the Boston-based ETF issuer best known for its suite of 3x and -3x products, continues to expand its platform to include non-leveraged ETFs. The firm has already rolled out a non-leveraged airline ETF (NYSE:FLYX), and earlier this year detailed plans Read more…
The impressive ETF boom that has unfolded over the last several years has been the result of a number of attractive features of the exchange-traded structure relative to traditional mutual funds. 
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