Guest post by Vix and more.

With the VIX at about 14.50 as I type this and a large group of investors convinced that stocks are overbought and/or not properly discounting global macro risk, many are wondering just how to translate their beliefs into an effective trading strategy.

For those who think a long volatility trade is the answer, there is the issue of the significant contango headwinds, where a negative roll yield will pummel net asset values on VIX options and VIX exchange-traded products as a part of the daily rebalancing process, while VIX futures are subjected to a similar decay that reminds me a little bit of a dying helium balloon. Long story short: there is a huge daily penalty being assessed just for holding these long positions.

There are ways to minimize the effect of negative roll yield and typically one of the best of these is to work with positions that focus on the more distant months of the VIX futures term structure. This is generally why VXZ outperforms VXX over an extended period. Unfortunately for aficionados of VXZ, the negative roll yield between the fourth and seventh month VIX futures (VXZ buys the seventh month and sells the front month each day) hit a new record on Monday and continues at near record levels.

So what is a long volatility trader to do?

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