TVIX
TVIX is the ticker symbol for “Velocity Shares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term” ETNs (exchange traded notes), sponsored by Credit Suisse. What a mouthful!
They’ve been in the news recently because of very big losses some buyers of them have suffered.
what it is (hang onto your hat)
An ETN is something like an ETF, except that what the holder is buying is not an ownership interest in a collection of equity securities but rather a piece of a debt security issued by the investment bank that sponsors the ETN.
In the case of TVIX, the debt instrument in question is a promise by Credit Suisse to pay the holder an amount that’s tied to the performance of futures on the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX. Although in form the actual note issued by CS is a debt instrument, in function it’s very much like an OTC derivative contract.
The 2x in the name means the ETN is leveraged. It’s designed to deliver 2x the return on the VIX.
Daily means it’s re-leveraged each day to deliver 2x the return on the VIX. The significance of this daily recalibration is that the return over longer periods of time can be significantly different than 2x leverage over that span, depending on the sequence of daily gains and losses.
The VIX is a measure of expected volatility, or movement of the S&P 500 index away from the current level–up or down–over the coming 30 days. It’s calculated based on the prices of near term puts and calls on the S&P.
what happened
ETFs and ETNs typically act like open-end mutual funds. When new buyers want the securities, the sponsor satisfies demand by issuing more. When sellers want to redeem, the sponsor cashes them in.
In the case of TVIX, Credit Suisse hedges the risk it takes in issuing the note by maintaining an offsetting position in the actual VIX futures contract. A month or so ago, however, CS reached the maximum position size allowed by the Chicago Board of Exchange. When it did, CS stopped issuing new ETN shares. At that time the net asset value of TVIX was about $15/share.
Over the ensuing weeks, as the S&P 500 meandered, the VIX fell sharply and the NAV of TVIX plunged to about $7 a share.
And here’s the strange part…
…retail buyers didn’t notice.
They continued to pay $14-$15 a share for TVIX, despite the plunge in value of the underlying note!. At the worst point investors were paying over 2x NAV!!! That’s like going to the bank to get change for $20 and being satisfied with $10 in coins. Who would do that? From looking at the charts it appears that at least a million shares or so traded at this level of misvaluation.
Then short sellers appeared and the bottom fell out. TVIX, which is trading a bit below $7.50 now, bottomed around $6.
the lesson(s)?
1. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs and ETNs don’t trade at net asset value. They trade at whatever price willing buyers and willing sellers meet.
2. As far as I’m aware there’s no publicly available data on average bid-asked spreads for any ETFs or ETNs. But the VIX price is available in real time, so it should have been easy to make a rough guess at NAV–and theefore the premium one would be paying. It’s hard to believe that no buyer did any homework. The broker acting as an agent in the transaction certainly knew what net asset value was.
3. The broker you place the order with is an agent. He has no obligation to tell you you’re doing something incredibly stupid. (Caveat emptor. Welcome to Wall Street.)
4. I wonder who the short sellers were and how they got the idea to sell TVIX short.
5. Where do you think the stock the short sellers borrowed to sell came from? …from the accounts of the retail investors who held TVIX and whose brokerage agreements allowed their firms to led out their holdings, that’s where. Translation: from just about any retail holder.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which doesn’t seem to get the misvaluation–which I think is the most interesting part of the story–the SEC is investigating. Why? …because the shares plunged just before Credit Suisse announced it would begin to issue new TVIX shares.