Richard Bloch for Seeking Alpha notes that VIX futures are currently trading in a contangoed market, with more than a 10 point spread between the August contracts and the March 2013 contracts.
VIX ETFs and ETNs hold futures contracts, and if the market is in contango – later dated contracts are costlier than the soon-to-expire contracts – then the funds would incur loses when rolling futures.
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Max Chen contributed to this article.