Sunday, December 27, 2015

Enhancing Performance with Low Volatility ETPs

One theme that I will spend more time on in 2016 and beyond is the low volatility anomaly, which has been discussed in considerable detail in the academic world, leading to papers such as the following:



In a nutshell, the research supports the claim that low volatility and low beta stocks in the United States and across the globe outperform high volatility and high beta stocks, with low volatility stocks generating substantially higher risk-adjusted returns.

Not coincidentally, the groundswell of research pointing to outperformance by low volatility stocks has created a land rush for low volatility ETPs in the first generation of “smart beta” or factor-based investment products in ETP wrappers.  Since I believe smart beta or factor-based ETPs is one of the key revolutionary ideas to appear in the investment world in recent memory, I will have a great deal to say about this subject and the many tangential ideas that arise from it going forward.  After nine years focusing primarily on the VIX, volatility and related subjects, it is time to charge off in some new directions, starting with some that have a whiff of volatility and ETP innovation.

For now I am going to be content with updating a February 2013 post, with the title The Options and Volatility ETPs Landscape.  At that time, I wanted to capture those ETPs which employed a buy-write / covered call approach, employed a put-write strategy, focused on the convertible bond space or targeted low volatility stocks.  Well, a lot has changed in the past three years, notably in the low volatility space.  This time around, I have some enhancements to the options and volatility ETPs graphic.  As is the case with The Current VIX ETP Landscape, I have added yellow stars for those ETPs with an average daily volume of 1,000,000 or higher and pink stars for ETPs with an average daily volume between 100,000 and 1,000,000.  Additionally, I have highlighted the new currency-hedged crop of low volatility ETPs by using a red font and have captured the demise of HFIN, a financials buy-write ETF that closed in March 2015 with a X-HFIN designation. 



[source(s): VIX and More]

There are a number of other sub-categorizations I will delve into at a future data, but note that whereas FTHI is a buy-write only, FTLB adds an out-of-the-money put.  Three other relatively new arrivals, CFO, CDC and CSF, are structured so that they will hold up to 75% of portfolio assets in cash in adverse market conditions.  Another intriguing new entrant, SLOW, attempts to avoid sector bias by forcing greater sector diversification than most other low volatility ETPs.

So if you found 2015 volatility to be daunting and are looking to dampen volatility in your portfolio in 2016 or tap into the performance benefits of the low volatility anomaly, keep the list above in mind.  While comprehensive and including many ETPs with marginal liquidity, this list may not touch upon some of the many new and illiquid products that might be flying under the radar.

Related posts:





Disclosure(s): none
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Sunday, December 6, 2015

The Current VIX ETP Landscape

I have been writing about VIX ETPs since the launch of the initial duo of VXX and VXZ back in January 2009 and from 2010 onward I have been plotting all of them on a leverage/maturity grid like the one below. It is amazing how often various VIX ETP investors mentioned one of these charts when I talk to them. Even through the VIX ETP space has been relatively stable as of late, I have not updated this graphic since early 2014, so a refresh is long overdue.

For those who have not been following along over the years, I have plotted every VIX-based ETP using leverage on the Y-axis and maturity on the X-axis. With the advent of what I am calling VIX strategy ETPs, I have isolated in their own box in the lower right hand corner a half dozen of these products whose characteristics do not necessarily imply a fixed point on Cartesian coordinate system.

The key at the bottom highlights various salient features of each of these products. From previous incarnations, I have retained the presence of non-VIX legs (typically positions in SPX/SPY), the combination of both long and short legs, dynamic allocation of the legs and optionability. I have also shaded areas where there is high leverage/compounding risk as well as high roll yield risk. Not surprisingly, these risks converge at TVIX and UVXY, two of the more infamous VIX ETPs.  Another carryover is font color, where black indicates ETFs and blue is for ETNs.  This time around I have also added yellow stars for those ETPs with an average daily volume of 1,000,000 or higher and pink stars for ETPs with an average daily volume between 100,000 and 1,000,000. Note that while CVOL technically makes the cut, at today’s closing price of 0.40, any sort of meaningful reverse split to raise the price about 5 or 10 would highlight just how illiquid this issue is. In fact, only six VIX ETPs pass the one million share screen: TVIX, UVXY, VIXY, VXX, SVXY and XIV.

VIX ETPs 120615

[source(s): VIX and More]

There are three new additions to this graphic. The most notable of these are VXUP and VXDN, which were launched by AccuShares back in May. These products deserve a post (or series of posts) dedicated to some of the issues surrounding them, but the short version is that high complexity, frequent distributions and consistent tracking errors resulted in a product that investors decided was not worth their trouble. The other “new” products is, VQTS, the first ETP that tracks the SPX VEQTOR Switch Index, making it a relative of VQT and PHDG, but one which uses a dynamic allocation to VIX futures to achieve a 10% target realized (historical) volatility. VQTS was launched in December 2014 and like most VIX ETPs, has struggled to reach critical mass.

While the VIX ETP market is showing some signs of maturing, there are many new and exciting developments in terms of low volatility ETPs and more broadly in the ETP space in general. As I am currently at the IMN 20th Annual Global Indexing & ETF Conference – and scheduled to speak on a panel, “Trading the VIX: Riding Today's Waves of Volatility” with Larry McDonald, Mark Shore and Matt Moran tomorrow – this seems like a good time to devote more time to writing and in particular to resurrecting the “and More” portion of this blog.

Related posts (a selection from literally hundreds of posts on VIX ETPs):

Disclosure(s): net short VIX, VXX, UVXY and TVIX; net long SVXY, XIV and ZIV at time of writing

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