Friday 12 July 2013

Volatility melts into the weekend

With equities still rallying, volatility is still declining. The VIX closed -1.2% @ 13.84. Across the week, the VIX declined by 7%, the lowest close in seven weeks. The big VIX 20 threshold now looks a very long way up.


VIX'60min


VIX'daily3


VIX'weekly


Summary

The market is starting to settle into a phase of almost complete 'fearlessness'. If the sp'1700s are hit early next week, then VIX 12s look viable, although it won't take much to spike the VIX back into the 14/15s.

As ever, when the VIX is at such low levels, almost all daily moves are little more than static/noise. Bears will need to keep in mind that any VIX jump of 10..even 20% doesn't count for much, when you start with an extremely low VIX.


Low volatility for some weeks to come

It would appear the VIX will generally stay low into August. The big question is whether VIX 20s will be hit in the next multi-week down cycle - prime time for that looks to be late August/early September.

All things considered, VIX 30/40s look essentially impossible this year...just as they were in 2012.

more later..on the indexes