Toronto-based Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. announced Tuesday it will not be accepting any new subscriptions for units of BetaPro S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Inverse ETF, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HVI.

Horizons does not expect the ETF to be able to meet its current stated investment objective after the close of trading today, the company says in a news release.

Accordingly, it has suspended new subscriptions until further notice. Redemptions on the fund will continue to be accepted.

After the close of trading today, Horizons anticipates the performance of the ETF will only correspond to approximately one-half times the inverse (opposite) multiple of the daily performance of the S&P 500 VIX short term futures index.

Purchases of new units at the available offer price on the secondary market are not expected to be reflective of the underlying net asset value per unit, Horizons says, but it anticipates that the secondary market will continue to provide unitholders with a forum to sell units at a price reflective of the net asset value per unit.

The fund’s units are expected to trade at a substantial premium to their net asset value while subscriptions of new units are suspended, Horizons stresses. As a result, the company strongly discourages investors from purchasing new units at this time.

Horizons plans to call a special meeting of unitholders to amend the fund’s investment objectives.

The company anticipates that the investment objective would change from seeking to correspond to one times the inverse (opposite) multiple of the daily performance of the S&P 500 VIX short term futures index to seeking to correspond to one-half times the inverse (opposite) multiple of the daily performance of the index.

Update: Horizons resumed the acceptance of new subscriptions of units of BetaPro S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Inverse ETF on March 14.