The underlying index is TVIXIV. Anyone trading this thing should have kept a very close watch on that index. If you didn't you weren't paying enough attention, especially for such a dangerous leveraged product. The divergence was very apparent before the thing imploded. I have a friend who's too stubborn to get out even tho he's in at around 16. We always have arguments about stop-loss and risk management. It's unfortunate it had to get to this.
Too bad, but it's not totally beyond possibility he could get out whole. All it takes is a big VIX spike, which is inevitable.
Good point. Anyone can go to finance.yahoo.com and type the symbol and "-IV" (without the quotes) after the symbol to check if there is divergence between the actual price and NAV. Here's an article providing some examples when the ETN is trading well above its net asset value: http://seekingalpha.com/article/469631-etf-investors-beware-the-coming-etn-backlash?source=yahoo
No, it's from the same article, regarding the disconnect between the share price and the net asset value of two ETNs, the TVIX and GAZ: "That is because both were - or still are - trading at significant premiums to their NAV. This means that the assets in each unit of the note are worth less than what they are trading for on the open market. Generally speaking, this is a result of the ETN issuers refusing to put out more shares on the open market which can create a disconnect between underlying prices and the share price of the note."
TVIX was about 90% overvalued vs the VIX index. VIX had dropped down substantially, TVIX for whatever reason did not. All it took was the issuer to say they are going to issue more shares to get it to tank