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You don't want to use VXX or UVXY, they have significant contango drag with the VIX futures, unless the you think the VIX term structure will go from contango towards backwardation in a short time period. It basically means that when the front month VIX futures are less than the 2nd month VIX futures, they are in a contango state, and VXX and UVXY is constantly selling front month VIX futures to buy next month VIX futures (which is going to be more expensive) on a daily basis. So when VIX futures are in contango, VXX and UVXY will constantly go down. That's why it has to periodically reverse split, because they constantly go towards 0, unless there is backwardation in the VIX futures term structure, where VXX and UVXY will pop and go up 10-30% in a short time period. There's more info about this on the following sites: http://vixcontango.com/Site/Introduction#InsideVolatilityETFs http://sixfigureinvesting.com/2013/04/how-does-vxx-work/ http://seekingalpha.com/article/3012686-how-does-uvxy-work http://seekingalpha.com/article/3327635-caution-needed-in-the-current-volatility-market http://vixcentral.com/ The risk reward on the 16/13 August put spread is a max profit of 210, and max loss of 90 per spread. The breakeven is VIX at 13.90 at August expiration. I'm expecting that VIX won't stay at 12 between now and then, just based on the fact that there's a fed meeting at the end of the month, non-farm jobs report the first week of August, there's additional economic data coming out, a ton of earnings reports, etc. I'd still make something off the spread if there's just a small temporary pop in the VIX. In addition to that SPY & SPX IV Rank is at 0%, and VRatio (VXV/VIX) is above 1.2. That doesn't mean that it's definitely going to be a winning trade, but I like the odds that VIX won't stay at 12 and under for the next month.