Quote from winstontj:
guys - it is VERY hard to arb in the secondary market because you can not create/redeem shares directly to the fund company.
You have to watch the tickers. I'm very limited as to what i can do trading-wise because #1, i work for one of these ETF companies and #2 I get paid to work for an ETF company, not to day-trade.
Arizona - you ask for SDS, (i don't work for that company) SDS = 2x short SNP 500. So, this is a daily beta ETF, SNP goes down 1%, sds *should* go down 2% (minus fees, expenses, etc. which I believe we are all at 0.95%). So S&P down 1% SDS down 2%
This is a VERY liquid ETF so arb opportunities are going to be hard to come by and not very large - take a look at higher leverated ETFs and less liquid sectors rather than S&P...
You guys see a down turn signal coming into the close, at 3:55pm EST - guys decide to start buying SDS thinking it will go up. They buy so much that the price of the ETF moves above the underlying market value of the S&P stock basket... now your share of SDS is worth more than what is behind it.
Either - short the SDS (short the short) or look to the bull/long side to see if it happens there (SSO). Often times these market action discrepancies will happen equally across the pairs - as you see that SDS is worth more than the S&P, look to the SSO, market action may have driven SSO sown below the underlying value of SSO.IV.
Unfortunatley because you are not an Authorized Participant in the Primary market you can not buy/sell from the fund company and Arb these things easily - you can only capitalize on the market action on the long side.
Watch the iNAV values and if the share is trading above the underlying value, look to the opposite pair because the correction will be inverse. I have found that it is hard to short ETFs - not always available.
Does this make sense?
You can't really short a third instrument knowing that the secondary proxy is out of allignment. Although, depending on how big you are and who you trade through, your traders may be able to make arb markes for you and capatilize on this stuff.
sorry if I wasn't articulate enough to explain clearly