by Ian Cooper

It always pays to use protection.

After some great upside, markets are plunging again. Investors are panicking. Stocks are plummeting. All thanks to inflation and the fact the Federal Reserve may have to get far more aggressive with interest rate hikes, near-term.

So much for inflation being transitory.

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The consumer price index unexpectedly shot higher in August, even though gas prices cooled off a bit. CPI gained 0.1% for the month, and is up 8.3% year over year. Meanwhile, economists were looking for a decline of 0.1%. PPI, which comes out later this week, could send markets even lower, unfortunately.

With that, the Dow Jones is down 896 points on the day. The S&P 500 is down 127, as the NASDAQ plunges 485 points. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you have geniuses running the Federal Reserve. 

But I digress. So, what’s the best way to trade the fear?

As we’ve noted, some of the best ways to trade skyrocketing fear is with ETFs and ETNs:

  • ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (UVXY) — The ETF was designed to match two times (2x) the daily performance of the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index.  
  • iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures (VXX) — The VXX ETN provides exposure to the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index.
  • ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY) — ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF provides long exposure to the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index, which measures the returns of a portfolio of monthly VIX futures contracts with a weighted average of one month to expiration.

Those trades move higher as the VIX moves higher.