I keep talking to you about this and somehow you think I am an idiot or something..

a) You don't understand VIX. It's really clear that your bet on VIX was wrong. Now you want to lever up on VIX calls? There is no sensible finaincial advisor anywhere who would tell you that thtat planmakes any sense at all.

b) VIX calls are bets on the volatility of volatilty. You are betting on the volatility of volatility being mispriced in the market place. That's kurtosis of S&P prices. Have much insight into the kurtosis of S&P prices? I have a Ph.D. in stats and I don't.

c) If you really wanted to buy VIX calls, buying TVIX calls seems completely retarded to me. I really think this ETN is going away. Credit Suisse is embarassed by it. They have dropped their support of it. There could be a meeting at CS this week where people get together and decide that it is time to redeem the notes. If I was at the meeting, I would sneer at anyone who thought that wasn;t the right approach. I don't know what happens to options on a synthetic ETF when the sponsor liquidates the ETF. I'll bet they just blow away your time value if you're long. If someone else here has more insight into this, I'd like to hear it.

d) You need something with a 400% return to get your money back. You should expect that will take you approximately 30 years of sensible investing.

You were completely brain dead to do this bet in the first place. When you find yourself in a hole - stop digging...

Edit: Slick is completely stupid and insists on answering questions here. Among other problems with that reply is the notion that you should bet on equities not indexes is counter to just about everything in finance. Betting on the first moment of the S&P 500 (i.e. the average price or something) is an excellent idea full of good diversification. Slick also doesn't know that VIX futures are 1256 contracts so the tax loss is marked to market at the end of the tax year (or in some sense every day) so selling a 1256 pass-through for a tax loss is retarded. Slick is retarded. I wish he would go away.

Edit 2: Forget it underexposed - you can't trade VIX with trend-following. Doesn't trend. I promise. Work out Hurst exponents which give you some idea of trending and VIX looks different than every other price stream you have ever seen....

Edit 3: How did you come to put all your eggs in the TVIX basket anyway? Honestly there might be some money for you from whoever encouraged you to do it. There might even be some money from CS (doubtful, but maybe worth a try).

Edit 4: Chris is a moron too. Buy and hold a double leveraged ETN investing in VIX futures constantly in contango because buy and hold works with everything? Read the prospectus Chris. The prospectus will tell you that if you buy and hold TVIX you should expect to lose all your money. It's right there.

Edit 5: Jim Z is encouraging this guy to trade TVIX??? WTF?

Edit 6: @strnj1: "Stuff like NLY (Annaly Capital) pays a handsome 13.6% Interest while it's lingering at the bottom and, when the real estate markets turn around, you've basically bought at the bottom"

Yet another moron. NLY doesn't own real estate - they own agency debt that they have essentially repo'ed to get leveraged up on more agency debt. They are borrowing short to lend long. And you think you want economic recovery... Let's see..with economic recovery this is Finance 101...interest rates go up. Then you are long long duration bonds and short short duration bonds so you get hammered. Why do people invest in things they don;t understand? The very most basic research would turn up this little fact. Yet strnj1 is holding NLY hoping for economic recovery and advising other people to do the same thing. What a bunch of idiots around here.