Tuesday, September 29, 2009

AGG dividend capture -- using PST as a hedge

AGG should go ex-dividend on Thursday--last month's payout was .33, so I expect a similar amount.  I bought AGG at 104.72 and bought PST, which is a double inverse 7 to 10 year term treasury bond ETF at 52.36.  I did a couple of quick samples that showed PST moves at about 4 times the percentage move of AGG.  I could be pretty wrong on this--I just checked a couple of random time periods.   I was just looking for something that would compensate for my AGG position if the bond market in general went south.

To set up the hedge I want the dollar changes in the AGG to be offset by the inverse changes in PST.   If I bought 100 shares of AGG, that would be $10,472--since PST moves at -4X the rate I would buy $10472/4 of PST or around $2618.  PST was at 52.3 at that point so I divided 2618/52.3 which gives 50.057 shares.   So for every 100 shares of AGG I bought 50 shares of PST as a hedge.   These ratios have to be refigured each time a position is put in place depending on share prices, it is just coincidence that they ended at a 2 to 1 ratio this time. This hedge is not suitable for a long term holding because of the inherent behavior of ultra-short ETFs but it should be fine for the relatively short time I hope to hold this position (less than a week).  My exit point is an overall $0.33 per share gain on my AGG--with or without the dividend.

PST apparently does not do regular distributions (which is not unexpected it being an inverse fund)--I checked to make sure.  They do capital gains distributions occasionally.   If the hedge is perfect I would hope to exit at the same investment level in absolute dollars on the shares--and collect the AGG dividend.

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