August | 2017 | iMarketSignals

The “Anti-VIX” ETF SVXY is designed to increase in value when the volatility of the S&P 500 decreases, as measured by the prices of VIX futures contracts.
Extended data of SVXY, the ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF, from Jan-2006 to the fund’s inception date was calculated from its proxy, the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index.
SVXY is intended for short-term use. Using the extended price data, a buy-and-hold strategy of the hypothetical SVXY resulted in a huge loss of over 90% from 2007 to 2009.
The model buys SVXY only during up-markets when the VIX > 17 and rising, otherwise during up-markets it buys either QLD or DDM, or IEF when upmarket conditions are absent.
A backtest of the model from Jan-2007 to Jul-2017 produced a high 70% annualized return with a maximum drawdown of -27% with only 76 realized trades.