Quote from trefoil:
Look over in the Options forum, there was a long thread on the VIX. Atticus, at a time when the term structure was just as steep, suggested shorting the options on the futures, and hedging with SPY puts.
I put this on at that time and it wound up making money on both sides of the trade. Started this up again last week, shorting Sept and to a lesser extent Oct, hedged with SPY/SPX put spreads. We'll see how it works out. Will close out/modify when VXV is back to within one std of its normal relationship with the VIX, or by Labor Day, whichever comes first.
So the idea is to short that term structure but hedge it to keep the risk from a blowout to something reasonable. But going short XIV just because the level of the VIX is low, without looking at the term structure of VIX, is just amateurish.
I've been long upside deltas in flies and long the Sep/Oct futures switch. 10:1 favoring flies. It's done ok, up 10% or so on combined haircut.