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An Update On UBS’s ETRACS 2X Leveraged ETNs

Summary Since my last article, UBS has launched two more 2X Leveraged ETRACS ETNs. The mid-year spike in interest rates has pulled down many of these income-generating funds to more attractive levels. Relevant data for all of the funds are updated. Introduction In a Mar. 2015 article entitled ” A Quick Overview Of UBS ETRACS 2X Leveraged ETNs “, I gave a brief introduction to the line-up of 2X leveraged ETNs offered by UBS (NYSE: UBS ). These ETNs cover a broad range of investment classes, including traditional equity as well as alternative investment types such as real estate investment trusts [REITs], mortgage REITs [mREITs], master limited partnerships [MLPs], business development companies [BDCs] and closed-end funds [CEFs]. The use of 2X leverage allows these ETNs to offering alluring headline yields. For further general information regarding the pros and cons of leverage, as well as specific risks regarding these ETNs, please see my previous article . New offerings In May 2015, UBS launched the ETRACS Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged MSCI US REIT Index ETN (NYSEARCA: LRET ), an ETN that tracks twice the monthly return of the MSCI US REIT Index (the same index tracked by the giant Vanguard REIT ETF (NYSEARCA: VNQ )). LRET charges 1.96% in total fees (see below for how this is calculated), and sports a headline 2X index yield of 7.45%. In July 2015, UBS launched ETRACS 2xMonthly Leveraged S&P MLP Index ETN (NYSEARCA: MLPV ), which tracks twice the monthly return of the S&P MLP index. MLPV charges 2.26 in total fees, and sports a headline 2X index yield of 12.49%. The funds UBS currently offers fifteen 2X leveraged ETNs. The following table shows the fund name, ticker symbol, 12-month trailing yield, inception date, the corresponding 1X leveraged fund (where available), average trading volume and total expense ratio [TER] of the ETNs. The TERs were obtained from the funds’ pricing supplements and the remaining data are from Morningstar . Where 12-month trailing yields are not available (for more recent launches), the 2X index yield provided by UBS has been presented. UBS engages in the (rather dubious, in my opinion) practice of hiding their financing spread within their pricing supplement, which makes their headline management fee (known as “tracking rate”) look lower. For example, the UBS ETRACS Monthly Pay 2x Leveraged S&P Dividend ETN (NYSEARCA: SDYL ) has an annual tracking rate of 0.30%, a figure that is displayed prominently on the fund’s website, but you have to dig into the pricing supplement to see that you are being charged an additional 0.40% financing spread, which means that the total financing rate will be 0.40% + 3-month LIBOR (currently 0.31%). Adding all three fees together gives a total expense ratio of 0.30% (tracking rate) + 0.40% (financing spread) + 0.31% (3-month LIBOR) = 1.01%. Since LIBOR is subject to change, in my previous article I excluded LIBOR when quoting the TER of the funds (while reminding readers to be aware of this expense). However, in this article I have decided to quote TER to be inclusive of LIBOR (currently 0.31%) to give investors a better idea of the total fees that are currently paying. Additionally, note that because the funds are 2X leveraged, one should divide the TER by two if one wish to compare the expense ratios with unleveraged funds. I have also rearranged the categories of the funds somewhat compared to the last article. All broad equity, dividend equity, small-cap equity and homebuilder equity ETNs are grouped under “Equity”. The “Alternative Equity” class includes MLP, REIT, mREIT, and BDC funds. “Balanced” includes CEF and multi-asset funds. Fund Ticker Yield Inception Volume TER* 1X Alternative Equity Monthly Reset 2xLeveraged S&P 500 Total Return ETN (NYSEARCA: SPLX ) N/A(1) 3/2014 9K 1.56% SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged S&P Dividend ETN SDYL 5.43% 5/2012 1.8K 1.01% SPDR Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA: SDY ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Dow Jones Select Dividend Index ETN (NYSEARCA: DVYL ) 8.09% 5/2012 8K 1.06% iShares Select Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA: DVY ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged US High Dividend Low Volatility ETN (NYSEARCA: HDLV ) 10.02%^ 9/2014 15K 1.76% Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged US Small Cap High Dividend ETN (NYSEARCA: SMHD ) 17.70%^ 3/2015 23K 1.96% Monthly Reset 2xLeveraged ISE Exclusively Homebuilders ETN (NYSEARCA: HOML ) N/A(1) 3/2015 23K 1.96% ISE Exclusively Homebuilders ETN (NYSEARCA: HOMX ) Alternative Equity Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Wells Fargo MLP Ex-Energy ETN (NYSEARCA: LMLP ) 13.56% 6/2014 23K 1.76% Wells Fargo MLP Ex-Energy ETN (NYSEARCA: FMLP ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged MSCI US REIT Index ETN LRET 7.45%^ 5/2015 63K 1.96% Vanguard REIT ETF [VNQ] Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Mortgage REIT ETN (NYSEARCA: MORL ) 26.52% 10/2012 289K 1.11% Market Vectors Mortgage REIT Income ETF (NYSEARCA: MORT ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Dow Jones International Real Estate ETN (NYSEARCA: RWXL ) 4.99% 3/2012 24K 1.31% SPDR Dow Jones International Real Estate ETF (NYSEARCA: RWX ) 2xMonthly Leveraged Long Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index ETN (NYSEARCA: MLPL ) 15.02% 7/2010 103K 1.16% Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index ETN (NYSEARCA: MLPI ) & ALPS Alerian MLP ETF (NYSEARCA: AMLP ) 2xMonthly Leveraged S&P MLP Index ETN MLPV 12.49%^ 7/2015 1.6K 2.26% iPath S&P MLP ETN (NYSEARCA: IMLP ) 2xLeveraged Long Wells Fargo Business Development Company Index ETN (NYSEARCA: BDCL ) 20.24% 5/2011 164K 1.16% Wells Fargo Business Development Company ETN (NYSEARCA: BDCS ) Balanced Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Closed-End Fund ETN (NYSEARCA: CEFL ) 22.04% 12/2013 150K 1.21% YieldShares High Income ETF (NYSEARCA: YYY ) Monthly Pay 2xLeveraged Diversified High Income ETN (NYSEARCA: DVHL ) 16.56% 11/2013 15K 1.56% Diversified High Income ETN (NYSEARCA: DVHI ) * Includes 3-month LIBOR (currently 0.31%). ^ 2X index yield provided by fund sponsor. Actual yield may be different. (1) No dividends are paid out as this is a total return fund. Recent performance A chart of the total return performance of the 6 equity-based 2X leveraged ETNs (excluding SMHD, which for some reason doesn’t show on YCharts) since my last article is presented below. SPLX Total Return Price data by YCharts The graph above shows that the 2X homebuilder ETN HOML has outperformed with a total return of 9.88% since Mar. 2010, followed by SPLX with 3.78%. HDLV had a slight positive return of 2.76%, while the two “vanilla” dividend ETNs, SDYL and DVYL, had the lowest total returns of -1.05% and -2.57%, respectively. However, if SMHD had been included in this graph, it would have been by far the worst-performing fund, with a total loss exceeding -15%. A chart of the total return performance of the 7 alternative equity-based 2X leveraged ETNs (excluding LRET and MLPV whose histories are too short) since my last article is presented below. LMLP Total Return Price data by YCharts Unfortunately, all five of the alternative equity ETNs shown in the chart have had negative returns since Mar. 2015. This is not surprising because many of these asset types are considered to be income-generating vehicles that suffered significantly during the interest rate spike in the first half of 2015. MLPL had the worst total return of -21.7%, a consequence of collapsing oil prices, while MORL had the second-lowest total return of -12.8%. The best (relative) performance was turned in by the 2X international real estate ETN RWXL, at -7.17%, followed by BDCL at -7.87%. LMLP had a total return of -8.06% over this period. Finally, a chart of the total return performance of the 2 balanced 2X leveraged ETNs since my last article is presented below. CEFL Total Return Price data by YCharts We can see from the chart above that CEFL had a total return of -9.68% while DVHL had a total return of -12.0%. The total return performances of the 2X leveraged ETNs since Mar. 2015 is shown in the chart below, arranged in order of highest to lowest return. Equity funds are in green, alternative equity funds are in blue, and balanced funds are in yellow. We can see from the chart above that the equity ETNs have had the best total return performances since Mar. 2015. In fact, the five best-performing funds were all equity ETNs. The notable exception of this class was SMHD, which performed poorly. Distributions Most of the funds have “Monthly Pay” in their title, and therefore these funds pay monthly. BDCL, MLPL and MLPV pay quarterly, while SPLX and HOML are total return funds and so they pay out nothing at all. However, investors should be aware that the monthly payments can be quite lumpy. This is especially true when the majority of the underlying constituents of the fund pay quarterly dividends on the same month. An extreme example is MORL, where the “big month” distributions are approximately 10 times as large as the two “small month” distributions. The yields of the funds are also displayed graphically below, arranged in order of smallest to highest yield. Equity funds are in green, alternative equity funds are in blue, and balanced funds are in yellow. We can see from the graph above that MORL has the highest yield, at 26.52%, while CEFL and BDCL have the second and third-highest yields of 22.04% and 20.24%, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, RXWL, SDYL and LRET have the lowest yields of 4.99%, 5.43% and 7.45%, respectively. Expense ratios As explained above, the headline expense ratio (or “tracking rate”) stated on the UBS website for the ETRACS products is not the total fee charged by the ETNs. One must delve into the pricing supplement to ascertain the additional “financing spread” charged by the issuer. The sum of the two expense ratios is then added to the 3-month LIBOR (currently 0.31%) to calculate the TER of the funds. Additionally, and as mentioned above, the TER should be divided by two if one wishes to compare the expense ratios of these ETNs to non-leveraged funds. The TERs ( including 3-month LIBOR, currently 0.31%) of the funds is also depicted graphically below, from lowest to highest. The breakdown of the TERs are also shown. In my previous article, I wrote that: Finally, we observe that the TERs of the funds span a wide range of values, from 0.80% to 1.65%, with the somewhat unsettling observation that the more recent funds have been launched with higher expense ratios. That statement turned out to be somewhat prophetic as the two funds launched since my last article, LRET and MLPV, have the highest TERs of 1.96% and 2.26%, respectively (HOML and SMHD, two other recent launches, are tied for second at 1.96%). For LRET, the financing spread is shown in the “pricing supplement”, which can be accessed from the fund website : (click to enlarge) For the newest launch, MLPV, there is no pricing supplement. This was the case for two of UBS’ earliest funds, BDCL and MLPL, who do not possess the veiled financing spread. I was ecstatic. I thought “maybe UBS was reading my articles that shed light on their shenanigans and finally decided to lower their expense ratios for the benefit of their investors.” Alas, I was wrong. Instead of a pricing supplement, the financing spread was detailed, for the first time, in the prospectus supplement, which can be accessed from the fund website . The cynic in me thinks that the reason that UBS moved the financing spread from their pricing supplement to their prospectus supplement is to further obfuscate investors about the presence of said spread. After all, why would someone invest in their new launch MLPV, which charges 2.26% in expense ratio, when they could invest in the similar 2X leveraged MLP ETN MLPL, which charges only 1.16% in fees? However, the unwitting investor would not know about this difference because the headline tracking rate displayed for MLPV (0.95%) is only 0.10% higher than that for MLPL (0.85%). I therefore call on UBS to display all relevant expenses clearly on their fund website instead of in fine print within the pricing or product supplements. Conclusion The 2X leveraged funds allow investors to obtain leveraged participation in traditional equity as well as alternative equity classes such as REITs, mREITs, BDCs, MLPs and CEFs. For the average investor, this leverage can be obtained much more cheaply compared to a margin loan from a broker. For example, for the smallest account size, Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW ) charges 8.50%, Fidelity 8.575%, Scottrade 7.75%, Merrill Edge 8.625%. Only Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR ) (which I use) offers a competitive margin rate at 1.61% for their smallest accounts. This article also provides an update on the two newest issues, LRET and MLPV. Regrettably, the expense ratios of these two funds are the highest or tied-highest of all the ETNs launched so far. While several of these leveraged ETNs offer sky-high yields, investors need to be aware of the drawbacks of these funds, which include leverage decay (which is somewhat ameliorated by the monthly reset), significant expense ratios and credit risk of the fund sponsor [UBS]. Of course, these risks are on top of the inherent risks of investing in each asset class. For example, MLPs are sensitive to commodity prices while REITs/mREITs are sensitive to interest rates. Interested readers may also consult my recent articles on HDLV and CEFL . Disclosure: I am/we are long CEFL, BDCL, MLPL, MORL, LMLP. (More…) I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

HSBC, Custodian Of GLD’s Gold, Is Closing 7 London Vaults

Summary HSBC, custodian for the SPDR Gold Trust’s gold, is closing its 7 gold vaults. SPDR Gold Trust investors should be aware that their gold might be on the move and that they are not necessarily protected if it is lost or stolen en route. Traders might consider shares in the iShares Gold Trust for the time being as an alternative without this added risk. Longer-term investors in gold are encouraged to invest in funds that specify the location of their gold and who’s in charge of guarding it. My readers might recall a couple of articles I wrote in 2013, in which I suggested that gold investors consider alternatives to the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEARCA: GLD ), namely the Central Gold-Trust (NYSEMKT: GTU ) or the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (NYSEARCA: PHYS ). There were (and still are) several reasons why long-term gold investors should choose these funds over the SPDR Gold Trust (although I conceded that the SPDR Gold Trust was a better trading vehicle, given its liquidity and superior gold price tracking), but one that stood out in particular was custodianship. The SPDR Gold Trust has HSBC (NYSE: HSBC ) as its custodian, but HSBC doesn’t specify where it keeps its gold. Furthermore, HSBC doesn’t have to retain its custodian status of the fund’s gold. If it chooses to – and SPDR Gold Trust shareholders have no say in this – HSBC can call on sub-custodians to hold the fund’s gold. The only stipulation is that HSBC deems that the institution is suitable as a custodian of the fund’s gold although the stipulation in the prospectus is extremely vague. Furthermore, HSBC is not responsible in the event that a sub-custodian loses the fund’s gold so long as it can prove in court that it was acting in the best interest of the fund’s shareholders. I never stipulated that there was any sort of fraud, but it seemed that the language was broad enough so that it wasn’t impossible. Considering that there are other funds that offer exposure to gold, and considering that these funds’ prospectuses are very clear regarding the custodianship of their respective gold hoards, it seemed fairly straightforward to go ahead with one of these two other funds. What’s Happened Since? Just recently, there has been a development in this situation that has prompted me to issue a cautionary note to shareholders of the SPDR Gold Trust. HSBC is closing each of its 7 London gold vaults. Now, there is no evidence that SPDR Gold Trust gold is found in any of these vaults, because HSBC doesn’t have to disclose the location of the fund’s gold. After all, HSBC is a massive international banking conglomerate with other gold vaults, including in, say, New York. Furthermore, we don’t even know whether HSBC is acting as the trust’s custodian, because, as we’ve seen, it can hire a sub-custodian to do the work. But if we look at the simple facts, it is clear that the trust’s counterparty risk will rise as a result of this, and the trust’s shareholders need to at least consider them should they choose to continue to hold on to the shares. If the trust’s gold is held in one or more of these London vaults, then when they close in a couple of months, the gold will inevitably have to be moved. Whether it is to a sub-custodian’s vault or to another HSBC vault, there is added counterparty risk in the fact that this gold will have to be shipped. This means it will come into contact with numerous people, and it might even be shipped over water where a ship could sink or a plane could crash, thereby leading to a loss of the gold. Again, let me remind investors that HSBC is not responsible for losses so long as it can prove that its actions are in the best interest of trust holders in court. This means that if HSBC puts some gold on a plane and it crashes into the ocean, then this gold is gone and the shareholders will suffer, not HSBC. What Investors Should Do Announcements such as this should remind investors to study very carefully what it is exactly that they own when they own an ETF, especially one that is supposed to own a physical commodity such as gold. This gold will sometimes need to be handled and shipped, and this means risk to the fund’s shareholders. So in the past, I have suggested investors look at the other gold funds although short-term traders would be fine in the SPDR Gold Trust. Given the upcoming vault closures and the added counterparty risk – as minute as it might be – I think gold traders would be wise to suspend trading activities in the SPDR Gold Trust. There are alternatives. The iShares Gold Trust (NYSEARCA: IAU ) will not be impacted by this. This is an $11.25/share issue that trades several million shares per day, meaning that there should be plenty of liquidity for most traders reading this article. Options are less liquid for this fund relative to the SPDR Gold Trust, so that could be an issue. I also think investors would be wise to at least consider the less liquid Central Gold-Trust as a trading vehicle, which keeps its gold in Canada and which currently trades at an incredible 7.8% discount to its NAV. This is a $40/share issue that trades nearly 50,000 shares daily, so there is nearly $2 million in daily volume. Most retail investors should have no liquidity issues, and the fund is therefore an acceptable trading vehicle for the time being unless you are looking for very short-term intraday trades. The Bottom Line Maybe I’m being a bit paranoid in my warning, but I really do think there is a risk here. While it is probably a remote one and while it is impossible to quantify, those who trade the SPDR Gold Trust should have it in mind and watch out for more news on this front over the next few months. Finally, I want to reiterate that I think knowing where your gold is and who is in charge of protecting it is important, and for this reason, I think the Central Gold-Trust and the Sprott Physical Gold Trust both offer investors with better, safer opportunities. This statement is especially true when we consider that part of the justification for holding gold in your portfolio is that it is a safe asset that comes with limited counterparty risk. Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Exploiting Market Inefficiency In Closed-End Funds

Summary Closed-end funds are widely considered to be the most inefficient of tradable securities. A recent paper examining closed-end fund discount and premium status conclusively demonstrates that mean reversion is a feature of the funds and can be the basis of a trading strategy. Mean reversion rates vary among asset classes. Fixed-income fund revert faster than equity funds. Exploiting Market Inefficiency In Closed-End Funds One of the clichés bandied about regarding closed-end funds is that they are the least efficient of investment vehicles. This should be obvious from the fact that the vast majority sell at discounts to their net asset values. By any reasonable interpretation of an efficient market, CEFs should always be selling at or near their NAVs. But such is certainly not the case. A quick look at the universe of 567 funds listed on cefconnect.com shows that 86.4% of them sell at a discount, with the median discount at -8.33%. To illustrate the point, I worked up this chart, showing the P/D distribution for all 567 funds. It illustrates just how contrary to an assumption of market efficiency the closed-end fund universe is. Premiums range from PIMCO Global Stocks Plus (NYSE: PGP ) and PIMCO High Income Fund (NYSE: PHK ) two fixed-income PIMCO funds at the high end of the scale with premiums over 60%, to lows under -30% for two tiny US equity funds, RENN Global Entrepreneurs Fund (NYSEMKT: RCG ) and Foxby Fund (OTCQB: FXBY ) at the bottom. If we take a 1% deviation from NAV as a generous expectation of reasonably efficient pricing, we find that only 5.1% of funds would even meet that loose standard. So, it seems clear that the closed-end fund market is inefficient. But it appears that it’s even more inefficient than this standard might indicate. To demonstrate I want to discuss a paper by Dilip Patro, Louis R. Piccotti and Yangru Wu titled Exploiting Closed-End Fund Discounts: The Market May Be Much More Inefficient Than You Thought . The paper, which is a bit more than a year old, only recently came to my attention. I like it because it validates an approach I’ve been using in my own investing in closed-end funds. An approach I’ve discussed and some commenters have considered to be unjustified. The authors looked at all closed-end funds. They contrasted trading strategies taken from the existing literature that bought funds with the greatest discounts and sold funds with the greatest premiums to a strategy based on an assumption of mean reversion by funds to premium/discount equilibrium levels. They began by formally testing for mean reversion of premiums and discounts for each individual fund, and showed that the majority do exhibit significant mean reversion. Results indicate a mean rate of reversion of 8.6% a month, which implies an average half-life of 7.7 months. Further, they showed significant differences among asset classes. Fixed-income funds have faster rates of mean reversion (10.4% a month) than equity funds (7.5%), and within the equity category, international funds reverted faster than domestic funds. Once they had established the significance of mean reversion in premium/discount they turned to a model arbitrage strategy based on this fact. The strategy consisted of buying the quintile of closed-end funds with the highest estimated returns and selling the quintile of closed-end funds with the lowest estimated returns. Their strategy greatly outperformed one from previous studies involving buying the most deeply discounted funds and selling those with the highest premiums. This table summarizes the results. (click to enlarge) The earlier strategy, buying funds with the lowest discounts and selling those with the highest premiums, generated an annualized mean return of 14.9 percent with a Sharpe ratio of 1.52. The mean-reversion based strategy produced an annualized mean return of 18.2 percent and a Sharpe ratio of 1.92. The chart below shows monthly results. (click to enlarge) They went on to look at commonly used risk factors and concluded that the results could not be explained by the three Fama and French factors, the Carhart momentum factor or the Pástor and Stambaugh tradable liquidity factor. Much of the math used in this study is beyond all but the most sophisticated investor (if you’re inclined to economic statistics, do check out the original paper) and not really useful for routine decision making. Nor is the strategy intended to be applicable as a practical, real-world investing scheme. Typical of academic research, it was designed to isolate and demonstrate the power of using mean reversion as a metric. Most important to a real-world investor is how an awareness of the highlights can inform decisions. Those highlights conclusively demonstrate mean reversion in discount/premium status for closed-end funds. Further they demonstrate that an investing strategy based on the expectation of mean reversion in discount/premium status outperforms strategies based on discount/premium status alone. And finally, they demonstrate that the outperformance of the mean reversion strategy is independent of five factors that might otherwise explain the enhanced return. For an investor the message is clear. First, closed-end funds are in fact the inefficient market vehicle many of us assume them to be. Second, discount/premium status, the manifestation of that inefficiency, does not, in itself, generate the greatest opportunity for exploiting that inefficiency. Third, reversion of discount/premium status to a mean value is a clear reality for closed-end funds. And finally, the market’s mispricing of closed-end funds relative to their NAVs coupled with the tendency to revert to a mean value provides exploitable opportunities. The study validates selection of closed-end funds with an eye to discounts over premiums, and historically exceptional discounts over simply using discount alone. It further validates selection of funds with exceptional deviations below their historical premium/discount status with the expectation of taking profits from the decay of the exceptional deviation. Although this was the only variable investigated by the authors, it is clearly not the sole variable one should use as a basis for choosing among CEF investments. One might, for example devise a strategy that superimposes discount mean-reversion on other factors. However one approaches closed-end fund investing, these results emphasize that it would be wise to incorporate this factor into one’s decisions. Finally, the variation noted among asset classes suggests caution in applying this element too broadly. It would seem to be most applicable to fixed-income funds and less so to domestic equity funds. For the entire study, risk-adjusted return (alpha) from the subsample of foreign funds was greater than that from domestic funds. Alpha from fixed-income funds was greater than that from equities funds. I think it’s fair to suggest that many close observers of closed-end funds have developed an intuitive sense that this is the case. They will be pleased to see their intuitions, gleaned from market observation, are validated by this careful statistical study. Editor’s Note: This article covers one or more stocks trading at less than $1 per share and/or with less than a $100 million market cap. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks. Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.