Why I am short $VIXM Mid-Term Volatility ETF

I don’t think many people follow this one, so I will be brief.  I am short the Proshares VIX Mid-Term Futures ETF, ticket symbol $VIXM.  Per Proshares, this Fund is designed to track the VIX: 

• The CBOE Volatility Index^® (VIX) is a widely followed measure of the expected volatility of the S&P 500. Since the VIX is not directly investable, S&P 500 volatility exposure is often achieved through VIX futures. Each of the VIX futures indexes measures the movements of a combination of VIX futures and is designed to track changes in the expectation for VIX over a specific time window in the future. As a result, the S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures Index and VIXM can be expected to perform differently than the VIX.

As with the other funds I am short, this ETF tends to go down over time due to contango issues.  If you are not familiar with contango, I’ll discuss it more later, or you can find a lot of information on the web about it.

Because it tracks the mid-term VIX futures, which are out 4-6 months, this fund  is not as volatile as the $VXX, which tracks the short term VIX, or $UVXY, which is 2X the $VXX.   

If you look at the performance of the $VIXM, it is down 14.54% year to date.  I am short it, because I think this will continue.  Why not?  What’s changed?  Why swim against the tide?  Like all investments, it is subject to short term fluctuations, so I intend to hold the short it for as long as I can. 

It is based on the same index as the $VXZ, which is a more popular fund, but I couldn’t borrow any shares of that to short.  Even with $VIXM, I couldn’t get as many as I wanted, so my position is pretty small compared to the other funds on this list.  

And just to be clear, being short it means I make money when it goes down.  Generally, the this works inversely to the market.  On a daily basis, if the $SPY goes up, this will go down.  It is not a perfect relationship, though. 

No change to my positions, here is how they ended the week.  Friday was down, as the overall market was down a lot.  My positions weren't hurt too bad, primarily because of NUGT and FXP 

	Close	Initial Short	Gain (Loss)	Percent
NUGT	9.37	10.47	1.10	10.5%
BIS	29.85	29.75	(0.10)	-0.3%
TZA	9.52	9.90	0.38	3.8%
VIXM	53.87	54.60	0.73	1.3%
RUSS	34.19	30.40	(3.79)	-12.5%
CORN	22.77	22.68	(0.09)	-0.4%
FAZ	10.99	11.45	0.46	4.0%
UVXY	37.15	40.68	3.53	8.7%
FXP	27.76	27.58	(0.18)	-0.7%
XIV	46.70	46.56	(0.14)	-0.3%