Credit Suisse has launched a Silver Shares Covered Call ETN, which is listed under the ticker symbol SLVO on The Nasdaq Stock Market.
SLVO is the first exchange-traded product in the US market to offer investors access to a covered call strategy on a silver investment and is designed to pay variable monthly coupons.
SLVO is the second ETN in Credit Suisse’s covered call strategy family of products, and follows the January 2013 launch of GLDI, an ETN tracking a similar strategy on gold.
SLVO, which tracks the Credit Suisse Nasdaq Silver FLOWS (Formula-Linked OverWrite Strategy) 106 Index, seeks to implement a rolling “covered call” investment strategy by maintaining a notional long position in shares of the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV) while notionally selling monthly out-of-the-money call options on that position. Holders of SLVO will be entitled to receive variable monthly payments based on the notional option premiums received from the sale of the covered call options each month.
“Precious metals investments do not typically provide any current income. For the GLDI and SLVO ETNs however, this is not the case,” says Greg King, head of exchange-traded products in Credit Suisse’s Investment Bank. “Covered call strategies are designed to enhance yield in exchange for sacrificing part of the upside of an investment position. Both SLVO and GLDI seek to provide investors and their advisors with interesting new ways to introduce monthly cash flows into their portfolios while maintaining some exposure to precious metals.”
Credit Suisse partnered with Nasdaq OMX in creating the FLOWS suite of indices that the ETN tracks.
“As a global index provider, we are pleased to have helped create another index that is the basis of the first ETN to offer investors access to a covered call strategy on a silver investment,” says Robert Hughes, vice president, Nasdaq OMX Global Indexes. “Nasdaq OMX and Credit Suisse share a common goal of helping investors meet their investment objectives and we look forward to exploring other ways to provide them with additional investment opportunities.”
