While many investors, traders and commentators watched with fear and awe as market volatility gyrated up and down last week, a small group investing in indexes tracking these movements calmly gave the 'sell' command and pocketed the cash.

A small selection of exchange traded funds that track volatility have been launched by investment banks, asset managers and ETF platforms this year, providing investors with exposure to this unpredictable statistic. If their timing was spot on in these suitable - or unsuitable for the rest of us - conditions, they would have made a healthy profit. Many did so last week.