Exhibit 2: Performance History of S&P 500, VIX and S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index
To avoid paying too much for downside protection, investors have to adjust their allocation to VIX futures wisely and implement “just-in-time hedging”. To help investors to dynamically allocate to VIX, S&P Dow Jones Indices launched the S&P 500 Dynamic VEQTOR Index (“VEQTOR”) as a prepackaged investment solution. The Index monitors two market signals, implied volatility trend and realized volatility, and allocates dynamically to equity and volatility. It also has a “stop-loss” feature that moves 100% to cash when the index has experienced more than 2% loss in the past five business days.
Compared to S&P 500, VEQTOR shows lower maximum drawdown and faster recovery. On 3/9/2009, the S&P 500 dropped 55% since its previous peak (2447.08 on 10/9/2007). It took 1120 calendar days to recover (2449.08 on 4/2/2012). VEQTOR saw its maximum drawdown on 9/15/2008 when it dropped 18% since its previous peak (137005.24. on 10/9/2007). It took only 31 calendar days to restore that level (140308.26 on 10/6/2008). See Exhibit 3.
As all volatility reduction products, VEQTOR outperforms in bear market. It also participates in the growth but underperforms in strong bull market.
This article was written by S&P Dow Jones Indices Director Berlinda Liu.
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