ETFIQ measured 66 alternatives ETFs over the year to October 22, 2026. The S&P 500 fell in 20 of the 52 weeks, losing an average of 1.45% in those weeks. Across the full group, 13 funds rose on average during those same weeks, and the median fund's decline came to 45% of the index's, a number the data calls down-week capture. A reading below zero means a fund rose while the index fell.
The strategies behave differently enough that looking at the whole group first would hide more than it shows. Volatility funds, as a group, moved opposite the S&P 500 most often: five of the nine had a negative median correlation of −0.64, and the group's median down-week capture was −65.7%, meaning the typical volatility fund gained more than half again what the index lost. Two of the two market-neutral funds also rose, with a median correlation of −0.32 and a median down-week capture of −63.6%. At the other end, hedged equity funds carried a median correlation of +0.89 with the S&P 500, moving largely in step with it, and their median down-week capture was 58.2%. The 20 managed futures funds sat in between, with a median correlation of +0.43 and median down-week capture of 47.4%, and three of eight long-short equity funds and none of six multi-strategy funds rose in the index's down weeks.
Among individual funds, the three VIX short-term and mid-term futures ETFs, UVXY, VIXY and VXX, rose the most in the index's down weeks, with average weekly moves of +5.15%, +3.56% and +3.50% against the S&P 500's own −1.45% average, producing down-week capture numbers of −356.5%, −246.2% and −241.8%. BTAL, a market-neutral fund, averaged +1.64% in those weeks. At the other extreme, RSST, a managed futures fund, averaged −2.40% in the index's down weeks, a down-week capture of 166.4%, meaning it fell more than the index did on those weeks.
Rising in down weeks is not the same as outrunning cash. Of the 66 funds, 48 finished ahead of T-bills over the same 52 weeks, but among the 13 funds that rose when the index fell, only 4 also beat T-bills. UVXY and VIXY, for example, each rose sharply in down weeks yet trailed T-bills by 68.4 and 49.4 percentage points over the full year, while KMLM, a managed futures fund with a smaller down-week capture of −19.2%, finished 15.6 points ahead of T-bills. The pattern repeats across strategies: 14 of 20 hedged equity funds and 15 of 17 managed futures funds beat T-bills despite most of them rising alongside the index, not against it, while only 4 of 9 volatility funds and 1 of 2 market-neutral funds did, despite being the groups most likely to rise when stocks fell.
Readers can look up any fund's correlation, down-week capture and performance against T-bills, by strategy, on ETFIQ's fund pages.