Historical prices have been changed for reverse splits.*
I just got into this in early 2012, so I wasn't watching closely in 2008. But in 2011, the price of TVIX went up to 5 or 6 times its low, over the course of about 9 weeks. This was because of the government shutdown and debt limit crisis. This year's government shutdown and debt limit crisis is not expected until September or October, but it might drag into December.*
Trading can be shut down by NYSE or CBOE, but I don't know how the government gets involved in that. It was the government shutting down ITS OWN OPERATIONS, which pushed TVIX to such heights. UVXY did not come into existence until after that big event.*
So far, since late 2011, UVXY has been reverse-split by a factor of 600. That is a one-for-six, and then two one-for-tens. The price of TVIX went from about 16 to about 100 two years ago. According to the chart on Google finance, TVIX went from 167.50 on July 22, 2011 to 981.30 on September 30, 2011. These are not the actual prices at the time. The prices have to be divided by 10, because there was a one-for-ten reverse split in TVIX. (And another reverse split is coming up soon).*
If UVXY does the same thing this year that TVIX did 2 years ago, it could go up to 5 times its low. But where is the low? If the low is $30, then 5 times would be $150. If the the low is $20, then 5 times would be $100.*
It could be argued that the market is ready for a crash, so this time it could be even worse than 2 years ago. Or, it could be argued that the politicians won't take it to those extremes this time around, and the Fed will step in to prop up the markets. Or, maybe these two things will balance each other out.*
In May 2012, UVXY went up to about 2 times its low. Other than that, it might go up somewhere between one-fifth and one-half its low, whenever the cycle takes the market to a pullback. The problem is, of course, that UVXY keeps going down, while the "bag-holders" keep waiting for it to go back up. If you're lucky, you can get your money back, after averaging down and paying too much for it (every time but the last).*
According to the "know-it-alls," there is no way to predict when UVXY will go up, because presumably, there is no way to predict when the market will go down.*
The smart way to do it (usually) is to buy the inverse VIX, such as XIV or SVXY, whenever UVXY goes up. Except that this would NOT be the smart way to do it, if or when the bottom drops out of the market.*
The UVXY short-sellers are absolutely confident that UVXY will never go up in a big way. In other words, they seem to believe that a market crash is impossible. Otherwise, they are making huge money as long as the market keeps going up.*
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