Very quick check on my broker (poor graphing) gives peak adjusted share price (taking into account reverse splits) as ~5167500 USD. Last close 52.17 USD; you do the math.
This thing it's in perpetual drawdown all the time and destined to perpetually go to $0. It would now cost less than $0.01 if not for reverse splits.
Quick check at least -1000% (you would be margin called far before that hopefully but you could get unlucky with gaps). We have hardly seen the worst spike in history yet and it's safe to assume you could lose >100x investment with raw shorting. Some options strategy to short this without the tail risk would be far safer.
Feb 2nd through 8th 2018 was the famous volmageddon when several volatility funds blew up, if you want to take a look at the charts at that time. I’ve spent a few years working on a TVIX and UVXY trading algo that trades it both long and short. It’s tough but can make decent profit when trading on a portion of an account and hedged with LEAP UVXY calls. You just need to be able to short it actively to make more money from shorting it than losing on the LEAP hedges. Both TVIX and UVXY actually move similarly to some long-term OTM SPX puts, so imagine shorting SPX puts, whether you could manage those, and what would be your drawdown. Here are my TVIX trades from this past week, climbing up the shorted price to end up with higher short basis:
Btw, simplest approach may be to just buy long-term UVXY puts, or 3-week to 3-month DTE UVXY put spreads on vol spikes. You could practice with smaller spikes then size up the bet on large vol spikes.
Yes, I do the Long Leaps puts thing with UVXY, but when it got down-leveraged from 2X to 1.5X, much of my profit was erased. Now it's a much slower gain, too. Wish TVIX had options to directly cover a short position. Might use VIX calls if I can get a short TVIX fill on the next spike, whenever that might be.
One way people deal with the decreased UVXY leverage is by buying near ATM short-term put spreads. That way the leverage doesn’t matter because you’d make money as long is it gets a little lower. For example right now January 31st 14/13 put spreads go for $0.72, and would make 35%+ profit if UVXY simply drops by 50 cents from the current $13.50 and stays there before expiration. Still risky, but some people make a killing this way when timed right. Others blow up...