VS Trust (UVIX) Stock Analysis
VS Trust
▾ What's in the 58/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read UVIX (bank / insurer)
Banks and insurers are valued on what they earn on their capital, not on free cash flow — a normal DCF misleads here.
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1
Bank / Insurance lens (P/TBV + ROE) ↓
Price-to-tangible-book versus return-on-equity is how analysts actually judge a bank cheap or rich.
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Financial-health screens ↓
Watch the trend in profitability and asset quality, not the (not-applicable) bankruptcy score.
Standard DCF doesn't fit UVIX well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Bank / Insurance Valuation Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value investment banking. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
How does UVIX stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to UVIX (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If UVIX is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USCI | United States Commodity Index Fund | Investment Banking | $2.7B | — | — | — | 2.7% |
| OUNZ | VanEck Merk Gold ETF | Investment Banking | $2.8B | — | — | — | 39.6% |
| GLTR | abrdn Precious Metals Basket ETF T | Investment Banking | $2.9B | — | — | — | 46.6% |
| ETHE | Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF | Investment Banking | $1.6B | — | — | — | — |
| ULE | ProShares Trust II | Investment Banking | $3.7B | — | — | — | 46.1% |
| VIXM | ProShares Trust II | Investment Banking | $4.3B | — | — | — | 40.2% |
| HODL | VanEck Bitcoin ETF | Investment Banking | $1.2B | — | — | — | — |
| SVIX | VS Trust | Investment Banking | $1.2B | — | — | — | — |
How to value a bank (not a DCF question)
A bank's economic engine is the shareholder equity on its balance sheet — what the accountants say is left over after all loans, deposits, and liabilities are netted out. The bank earns a percentage on that equity each year (its ROE). So the two questions are: (1) what are you paying per dollar of equity (Price / Book)? and (2) how much is that equity actually earning (ROE)? Free cash flow doesn't work here — banks lend out their cash for a living.
Why it matters: For banks and insurers, book value is the regulatory capital they earn returns on. P/B is the cleanest comparison: 1.0× means buying the bank at the same price the accountants say it's worth.
Reference: 0.8–1.2× = fair for average bank · 1.5–2.0× = solid franchise · >2.5× = premium · <0.8× = potentially cheap or distress
Full explanation →
Premium to book — market expects above-average returns on this equity.
Why it matters: For a bank, ROE is the engine. A bank earning 15% on equity will compound book value at ~15%/year if it retains earnings. Combined with P/B, ROE tells you whether a premium price is supported by returns.
Reference: <8% = weak · 10–12% = solid · 15%+ = excellent · >20% sustained = exceptional franchise
Full explanation →
Why it matters: For banks especially, ROA isolates underwriting and operating efficiency from leverage. Two banks with identical ROE may have very different ROAs — one earning it cleanly, one earning it on borrowed money.
Reference: <0.8% = weak · 1.0–1.2% = solid · >1.5% = excellent (very rare for big banks)
Full explanation →
ROA differs from ROE because banks borrow ~10× their equity. Big asset base, smaller equity sliver.
Note: this lens skips Altman Z-Score and Piotroski F-Score (validated on industrial companies, not banks). For deeper bank-specific health analysis: check the 10-K's Tier 1 capital ratio, Non-Performing Loan ratio, and CET1 — these are what regulators actually monitor.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Altman Z was calibrated on industrial firms and doesn't apply to banks or insurers — their balance sheets are dominated by loans/securities, not working capital. See the Bank Valuation Lens above for P/B, ROE and ROA — the metrics regulators and analysts actually use to assess bank solvency.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Piotroski F was built for non-financial firms (gross margin, asset turnover, current ratio all assume an industrial cost structure). For banks, the equivalent quality signals are efficiency ratio, net interest margin, and provision coverage — see the Bank Valuation Lens above.
Plain English: the company holds about $125M in cash and is burning roughly $542M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 3 mo before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.
Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for UVIX due to its consistently negative operating cash flow and net income, as indicated by health signals. Investors are likely focused on the underlying volatility of the market, which this trust is designed to track, rather than traditional earnings. The biggest risk to our assumptions is the continued negative operating cash flow, which has been negative for the latest period and 0/4 years prior, indicating a persistent cash burn.
As of 12 days ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Performance of the underlying volatility index
- Tracking error relative to the index
- Investor demand for volatility products
The trend, in plain numbers (2024 → 2025)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
Nothing clearly improving year-over-year.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$542.1M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$623.5M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
UVIX is an exchange-traded trust, and as such, it does not have a traditional CEO or executive team in the same way an operating company does. It is managed by a trustee, which oversees the trust's operations and adherence to its stated investment objectives. The trust's structure means there are no individual executives to name.
What They Make
UVIX, the VS Trust, is an exchange-traded trust that aims to track the performance of a specific volatility index. It provides investors with exposure to short-term fluctuations in market volatility, with investors paying for this exposure through the trust's structure.
End Markets
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value & return on equity (P/TBV + ROE — how banks are actually judged) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices UVIX based on its ability to track the underlying volatility index and investor demand for such exposure, rather than traditional cash flows. Given its negative net income and operating cash flow, a DCFDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → model is not applicable; instead, its price reflects expectations for future market volatility and the trust's effectiveness in capturing it.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
As a trust, UVIX does not engage in traditional capital allocation activities like dividends or buybacks. It funds its operations through fees and the creation/redemption of units, which are tied to its underlying assets.
Residual Income
Balance-sheet financial (Investment Banking): residual income model - book value is meaningful anchor.
Show advanced inputs
| SectorDefault | 8.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project net interest income and fee-income lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Net income and operating cash flow have been negative in the latest period and for 0/4 years, indicating a challenging financial trend.
Geography & Markets
UVIX operates within global financial markets, with its performance tied to the volatility of major indices, primarily reflecting activity in the US market. Specific geographic revenue mix is not applicable for this trust.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)41.5NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (7 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (7)
- Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
- Discount rate floored from 7.5% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).
- Terminal growth set to 1.6% — the lowest of the applicable caps (binding: 80% of near-term growth (2%)). We use one effective terminal rate everywhere on the page.
- Price is 8.3x model IV - market may be pricing optionality, narrative catalysts, or margin expansion beyond what trailing cash flows support.
- Extreme valuation: the price is far above the model output for a non-cyclical — likely dominated by a data issue. The model value is suppressed.
- VALUATION HELD (EXTREME_MODEL_GAP): per-share values suppressed due to the model output failed plausibility checks.
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV null): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From VS Trust's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | -623.5M | $-11.77 |
| 2024 | — | -25.4M | $-0.48 |
| 2023 | — | — | $0.00 |
| 2022 | — | -60.7M | $-1.15 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -542.1M | — | — | -542.1M |
| 2024 | -329.4M | — | — | -329.4M |
| 2023 | -201.2M | — | — | -201.2M |
| 2022 | -232.0M | — | — | -232.0M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a EPS basis (residual-income model), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 551.0M |
| Total Liabilities | 7.7M |
| Equity | 543.3M |