VIX Short-Term Futures ETN VXX, UVXY and TVIX Prospectus The investment seeks return linked to the performance of the S&P 500(R) VIX Short-Term Futures Index TR. The ETN offers exposure to futures contracts of specified maturities on the VIX index and not direct exposure to the VIX index or its spot level. The index is designed to provide investors with exposure to one or more maturities of futures contracts on the CBOE Volatility Index Barclays VelocityShares ProShares
With Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) sponsors constantly making new types of ETFs available, there is now a variety of ETFs that provide investors with an opportunity to develop diversified investment portfolios. Their sophistication has also grown to include a breed of ETFs that do not passively track the performance of an underlying index. With this assortment of newer ETFs, and more on the way, market strategists are now capable of devising all-ETF portfolios based on a multitude of asset allocation schemes that respond to the need of their clients. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the changes brought about by ETFs. It describes and analyses recent changes alongside their impact on investment portfolios, and discusses the continuing success of index-based ETFs and the reasons underlying their long-lasting achievements. The book offers an objective discourse on the newly minted smart beta ETFs and some of the issues surrounding them, and provides an overview of how the increasingly widespread ETF-based portfolio hedging strategies are constructed and implemented. Paying particular attention to the importance of asset allocation and the essential role it plays in portfolio construction, this book explores the role played by ETFs in changing investors’ attitudes toward home bias, covering both established and emerging frontier markets. The author leverages his extensive background to integrate best professional practices and academic rigor for an increased understanding of the ever-evolving world of ETFs.
Exchange-Traded Funds in Europe provides a single point of reference on a diverse set of regional ETF markets, illuminating the roles ETFs can play in risk mitigation and speculation. Combining empirical data with models and case studies, the authors use diffusion models and panel/country-specific regressions-as well as graphical and descriptive analyses- to show how ETFs are more than conventional, passive investments. With new insights on how ETFs can improve market efficiency and how investors can benefit when using them as investment tools, this book reveals the complexity of the world's second largest ETF market and the ways that ETFs are transforming it.
In Volatility Trading, Sinclair offers you a quantitative model for measuring volatility in order to gain an edge in your everyday option trading endeavors. With an accessible, straightforward approach. He guides traders through the basics of option pricing, volatility measurement, hedging, money management, and trade evaluation. In addition, Sinclair explains the often-overlooked psychological aspects of trading, revealing both how behavioral psychology can create market conditions traders can take advantage of-and how it can lead them astray. Psychological biases, he asserts, are probably the drivers behind most sources of edge available to a volatility trader. Your goal, Sinclair explains, must be clearly defined and easily expressed-if you cannot explain it in one sentence, you probably aren't completely clear about what it is. The same applies to your statistical edge. If you do not know exactly what your edge is, you shouldn't trade. He shows how, in addition to the numerical evaluation of a potential trade, you should be able to identify and evaluate the reason why implied volatility is priced where it is, that is, why an edge exists. This means it is also necessary to be on top of recent news stories, sector trends, and behavioral psychology. Finally, Sinclair underscores why trades need to be sized correctly, which means that each trade is evaluated according to its projected return and risk in the overall context of your goals. As the author concludes, while we also need to pay attention to seemingly mundane things like having good execution software, a comfortable office, and getting enough sleep, it is knowledge that is the ultimate source of edge. So, all else being equal, the trader with the greater knowledge will be the more successful. This book, and its companion CD-ROM, will provide that knowledge. The CD-ROM includes spreadsheets designed to help you forecast volatility and evaluate trades together with simulation engines.
Today’s investors need to understand geopolitical trends as a main driving force of markets. This book provides just that: an understanding of the interplay between geopolitics and economics, and of the impact of that dynamic on financial markets. To me, geo-economics is the study of how geopolitics and economics interact in international relations. Plenty of books on geopolitics have been written by eminent experts in politics and international affairs. This book is not one of them. First, I am neither a political scientist nor an expert in international affairs. I am an economist and an investment strategist who has been fascinated by geopolitics for many years. And this fascination has led me to the realization that almost all books and articles written on geopolitics are useless for investors. Political scientists are not trained to think like investors, and they are not typically trained in quantitative methods. Instead, they engage in developing narratives for geopolitical events and processes that pose risks and opportunities for investors. My main problem with these narratives is that they usually do not pass the “so what?” test. Geopolitical risks are important, but how am I to assess which risks are important for my portfolio and which ones are simply noise? Because geopolitics experts focus on politics, they do not provide an answer to this crucial question for investors. What could be important for a geopolitics expert and for global politics could be totally irrelevant for investors. For example, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been going on for almost two decades now and have been an important influence on the political discussion in the United States. But for investors, the war in Afghanistan was a total nonevent, and the war in Iraq had only a fleeting influence, when it started in 2003. Geopolitics experts cannot answer the question of which geopolitical events matter for investors and which do not. Unfortunately, some experts thus claim that all geopolitical risks matter and that these risks cannot be quantified but only assessed qualitatively. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the chapters that follow, I discuss geopolitical and geo-economic events from the viewpoint of an investor and show that they can be quantified and introduced as part of a traditional risk management process. I do this in two parts. The first part of this book focuses on geopolitics that matters to investors. It reviews the literature on a range of geopolitical events and shows which events have a material economic effect and which do not. The second part of this book puts the insights from those first chapters into practice by applying them to current geopolitical trends. In this second part, I stick my head out and examine the impact the geopolitical trends have on the economy and financial markets today and their likely development in the coming years. —Joachim Klement, CFA
Leveraged Exchange-Traded Funds (LETFs) are publicly-traded funds that promise to provide daily returns that are in a multiple (positive or negative) of the returns on an index. To meet that promise, the funds use leverage, which is typically obtained through derivatives such as futures contracts, forward contracts, and total-return swaps. As of the end of 2012, there were over 250 LETFs in North America with total assets of approximately $32.24 billion. While the amount of assets held by these funds is still small, their popularity continues to grow as their trading volume is significantly larger and much more dynamic than traditional, non-leveraged ETFs. This comprehensive guide to LETFs provides high-level practitioners and researchers with a detailed reference tool for navigating the market and making informed investment decisions. Written from a measured analytical perspective, Miu and Charupat use clear and concise explanations of all important aspects of LETFs, focusing on such key elements as structure, pricing, performance, regulations, taxation, and trading strategies. The first two chapters set the stage for the book by identifying exactly what LETFs are and how they are regulated. The following chapters then look to bridge theory with practice to dive deep into the mechanics, portfolio rebalancing techniques, and daily compounding effects that make investing in these funds so lucrative.
October 15, 1951 marks the birthday of one of the key episodes in 20th century social history: the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive in a small laboratory in Mexico City - an event that triggered the development of the Pill. Carl Djerassi has been honoured worldwide for that accomplishment, which ultimately changed the life of women and the nature of human reproduction in ways that were not foreseeable. On the 50th anniversary of this pivotal event, Djerassi weaves a compelling personal narrative full of self-reflection and occasional humour on the impact this invention has had on the world at large and on him personally. He credits the Pill with radically altering his academic career at Stanford University to become one of the few American chemists writing novels and plays. This Man's Pill presents a forcefully revisionist account of the early history of the Pill, debunking many of the journalistic and romantic accounts of its scientific origin. Djerassi does not shrink from exploring why we have no Pill for men or why Japan only approved the Pill in 1999 (together with Viagra). Emphasizing that development of the Pill occurred during the post-War period of technological euphoria, he believes that it could not be repeated in today's climate. Would the sexual revolution of the 1960s or the impending separation of sex ("in bed") and fertilization ("under the microscope") still have happened? This Man's Pill answers such questions while providing a uniquely authoritative account of a discovery that changed the world.
Written by a number of authors, this text is aimed at market practitioners and applies the latest stochastic volatility research findings to the analysis of stock prices. It includes commentary and analysis based on real-life situations.
Includes the first published detailed description of option exchange operations, the first published treatment using only elementary mathematics and the first step-by-step procedure for implementing the Black-Scholes formula in actual trading.
