Quote from NYDreamer:
By the long periods of inactivity and relatively large jumps, I conclude that the number of trades is small. Too small a sample size to conclude whether the system is any good or not.
Also, were the drawdowns accomplished by just a few trades gone bad? Then be prepared for a world of hurt...
Using the VIX ETNs, yes, very small. Most months have 0-3 trades.
Using VIX Futures, the strategy would trade at least a little bit every day.
This is 2000 days of data, so I'm comfortable with the sample size.