Originally Posted by
Mesabah
I've done what dalad has done, it's considered the safe way to profit from the VIX moves. The issue is that due to the nature of these ETF's, the taxes basically negated any gains, although I never did it through a ROTH.
Basically, you simply buy SVXY after a large spike in the VIX starts to abate, and especially after the government agrees to some form of bailout(QE, TARP, etc).
Shorting UVXY is a bit tricky, it mostly involves shopping around for shares to short. I suggest not touching UVXY in any way, unless you are a pro.
All my trading of these instruments is in tax deferred accounts. You can buy puts in uvxy and vxx. The instruments that are long the vix futures are vxx, uvxy, tvix, and vixy. The ETN's that SHORT the vix are svxy, xiv, and ziv which shorts the mid term futures. The last three I mentioned are the opposite of uvxy, vxx, vixy and tvix.