Credit Suisse announced this morning the "event acceleration" of XIV, effectively calling those securities for redemption on February 21. While some news outlets are describing XIV as an "obscure" security, the market value of XIV was nearly $2 billion last week, so it is clearly a meaningful name to professional traders. XIV holds no assets; the value of the notes is determined by an underlying index that represents the inverse of futures linked to the VIX volatility index. We market veterans know that "it always works" is really just shorthand for "it works until it doesn't work." The last after-hours trade on XIV printed at $15.43 on Monday at 7:59 p.m., but, as the Nasdaq halted trading in XIV.

Source: Forbes February 06, 2018 18:45 UTC