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Looking for your derivation... aren't we saying the same thing though. Essentially a leveraged ETF is a bet on volatility since it's "decay" is proportional to the volatility of the underlying? Perhaps path dependency isn't the best term, what I'm really saying is that it all boils down to the...

True on VXX. I haven't thought through it but if you were shorting VXX to capture the contango decay how is that any different from selling the VIX futures? You'd expect the same constant profit with occasional blowups that wipe you out, so even though it's a seemingly foolproof strategy over...

I was specifically referring to Shadetree42's assertion that there is "decay" inherent in levered ETFs. The primary reason a 2x fund isn't at twice the level of the underlying index after a period of more than one day is the simple fact that they track 2x the daily percentage return of the...

I actually like to give a problem that we just recently solved as a takehome test. It's by definition representative of what I need them to know, and since I know "an answer" it helps to see if they come up with a far more elegant or more kludgy way of doing it. As for timed on-site coding...

You'd be hard pressed to find an old small house right along the 280 freeway in Hillsborough for less than $2.5M. I would think $6M would be the median price for any house there. We're talking the Bay Area where a 1 bedroom apartment can easily top $1M. A person has a hard time even grasping it...

It's actually not unusual in your situation to have 2 cards fail at the same time. It sounds like you have identical cards and identical monitor setups and used both cards with the same loading for the same amount of time. If the standard deviation of their mean time between failure is low, you...

This has been discussed ad nauseum. Bottom line is your simplistic view is simply incorrect.

I grasp what an algorithm is. I used IBs API pretty extensively, it actually locked me in and is the only reason I stayed as long as I did because I didn't want to refactor my code for a different API. Most of us who write our own code would call what IB offers an API, or application program...

I know it wasn't your point but you did bring up a good point that if a stock with a high borrow rate has options you can capture the borrow rate by taking advantage of the resultant break in put call parity even as a retail investor.

"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I think he, like a lot of us, invested a lot into writing code for IB's API that would be costly in terms of time to refactor to another broker. I bit the bullet and left, but I'll be damned if I let IB trap another guy like me in the same way. If I'd read up on them here before I chose them I...

What is it with these asinine comments when it comes to IB? Should a broker's customers really be expected to switch instruments because the broker does something ridiculous without explanation? Especially when VIX is a rather unique product and strategies developed for it wouldn't be expected...

Surprised they don't. Along with FT they're about as serious as it comes with their paywall.

For efficient markets sake you would distribute the spoils. The shares with a 30% borrow rate are the ones that most need more people willing to lend. If they captured that 30% minus a fair transaction cost they'd be incentivized to lend, heck you could incentivize me to buy shares just to lend...

A good point about PIL, but.....directly from the IB rep here on ET regarding the matter "A margin account alone does not afford the broker the right to lend out your securities, it's the actions you take in that account. If, for example, you maintain a margin account with fully paid securities...

At what point is it not OK to steal from a corporation. I mean I own a few million dollar corporation, is it fine to steal from my company? What if I was a new startup that was just a $500,000 corporation that I'd sunk my life savings into, no problem stealing from that? You gotta draw the line...

That's true to a point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are using any margin with IB and most other brokers you agreed when you signed up for their service that they can loan out your shares without them informing or compensating you (although IB does have a program where they split the fees...

Luck is exactly what it was.

Given the results so far I'd recommend not trading on any day that ends in a Y.

And that's why I recommended the risk free rate hurdle! Pekelo with those kind of returns you're gonna be a billionaire one day....in whatever currency they're using in Venezuela these days at least.