Can UVXY/TVIX "malfunction" like XIV and SVXY?

There was no malfunction. XIV did EXACTLY what it was suppose to do. TVIX and UVXY also do EXACTLY what they are suppose to do. There are no free lunches out there. Maybe an old rotten banana laying around every now and then. But that's about it.

Mav or anyone else out there - have y'all heard anything from Jane street or other prop firms? I've heard of a few blow ups so far.. No firm ending events, but some big set backs..
 
Thanks Maverick74. Then why are they shutting down XIV? And I read last night that holders of both XIV and SVXY might get nothing as they were going to liquidate. There certainly seems to be some malfunction. VIX today was down 92%. UVXY was down 33%. TVIX 40%. In that environment you would think that XIV and SVXY would be up BIG today. But what did they do? Down 80% to 90%.

Something "broke" with them it certainly looks like. "Broke" might be semantic, but the point above is what I'm getting at. UVXY and TVIX did not appear to "break", but XIV and SVXY did.

Thanks!

SVXY is still trading right?
 
stepandfechit, thanks. I think, if they just dissolve it willy-nilly, they can't just wipe everyone out - they would have to pay NAV. I could be wrong though (but I'm sure lawsuits are always in the cards lol).
 
Mav or anyone else out there - have y'all heard anything from Jane street or other prop firms? I've heard of a few blow ups so far.. No firm ending events, but some big set backs..


Dunno, but do you mean professional firms that were long XIV/SVXY and got caught up? They should know better hahaha.
 
Maverick and others - I answered one of my stupid questions earlier - what the VIX short-term futures index was - its the VIX lolol. But that still doesn't answer my underlying question - how UVXY/TVIX can be down 30% and XIV and SVXY down ~85% when they are supposed to hold opposite positions in futures. I think it was an after-hours blow-up that for some reason disproportionately affected XIV and SVXY, but that is all I can figure.
 
Can someone explain how shorting vix future is different from inversed vix etf? Lets say vix future keeps dropping back to around 12 then the short future holder would not lose any money, but the svxy holder would be far from gaining what have been lost. Look like the magic is about the -1x definition of the etf.
 
Can someone explain how shorting vix future is different from inversed vix etf? Lets say vix future keeps dropping back to around 12 then the short future holder would not lose any money, but the svxy holder would be far from gaining what have been lost. Look like the magic is about the -1x definition of the etf.

The better way to think about is this, when you are in the inverse ETF you are locking in losses everyday. There is no concept of "just holding it". Every day you lock in losses as they buy back at the highs and sell down in the next month. The only thing that is locked is the duration.

THIS is something most people don't understand. If you want to capture the selloff, you really need to just sell Feb and hold it into expiration. That way you can "ride it back down". The ETF does not do that, it holds and replicates a constant maturity. Do you understand that?
 
I wish they could invent an investment vehicle that literally trades exactly exactly exactly to what the vix does....not having any futures or erosion or backwardation involved with it.....why is this so hard to achieve.... they invent all these other worthless ETFs but can't develop one to trade the vix the way vix actually trades....

I tried shorting VXX this morning premarket at $60 in two different accounts and I couldn't....it was free money but why I couldn't short ticked me off....now I'll just wait until the vix drops back to single digits and VXX under $20 before going long volatility....there will probably be no more volatility ETFs after this fall out....SVXY will still exist but I think eventually they will shut it down because of the risk!!
 
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