Single Digits

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As some of you have already read, the volatility index ($VIX) went single-digits on us today, which hasn’t happened for over a decade. Indeed, we’ve been mired in low volatility for a long time, and ULTRA low volatility for over a week now. Here’s the long-term view:

0501-vix

You will note the one and only time this happened before (and it lasted all of one day) was in December 2006. For what it’s worth – – which in this captured market, is probably nothing – – I’ve marked with an arrow the Russell 2000 and the date in December 2006 when the single-digit VIX took place. As Ramsey pointed out on my Twitter feed, the market still had a good ten months to go before it peaked in that instance.

0501-lasttime