Here's What To Expect After Yesterday’s 34% VIX Spike
Bill Luby | Jun 30, 2015 12:20AM ET
One of my top posts from 2013 was All-Time VIX Spike #11 (and a treasure trove of VIX spike data), in which I sliced and diced the twenty largest one-day VIX spikes in the history of the VIX volatility Index. Nineteen of those spikes were in excess of 30%. With all-time #5 arriving later in 2013 and all-time #15 and #16 following in 2014, I was compelled to comment that despite the seemingly low VIX and concerns about complacency, 2014 Had Third Highest Number of 20% VIX Spikes .
Fast forward to the present and for all the talk of a low VIX, some forget that the second day of 2015 had a 28.1% VIX spike and then yesterday, we saw a 34.5% VIX spike, the eleventh largest in the history of the VIX and enough to trigger an update to the table of largest one-day VIX spikes below:
Note that based on the data for the 23 VIX spikes in excess of 30%, the SPX has a tendency to outperform its long-term average over the course of the 1, 3 and 5-day periods following the VIX spike. Also worth noting: 10 and 20 days following the VIX spike, the SPX has a tendency not only to underperform, but decline.
Further, while the huge decline following the 9/29/2008 VIX spike tends to dwarf the other data points, even when you remove the 9/29/2008 VIX spike it turns out that the SPX still loses money in the 10 and 20-day period following a VIX spike. When the analysis is extended out 50 trading days, the SPX is back to being profitable, but performing below its long-term average. On the other hand, when the analysis includes 100 days following the VIX spike, the SPX is back to outperforming its long-term average.
With the caveat that this is a limited data set, it is still worth flagging the pattern in which following a 30% one-day VIX spike, there appears to generally be a tradable oversold condition in stocks that lasts approximately one week, followed by a period of another month or so in which the markets typically have difficulty coming to terms with the threat to stocks. One quarter later, however, all fears are generally in the rear view mirror and stocks are likely to have tacked on significant gains.
This type of pattern supports the idea of both short-term and longer-term mean reversion, but calls into question the role of mean reversion in the 10-20 days following a VIX spike, perhaps as fundamental factors begin to win out over a technically oversold condition in stocks.
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Now that we have a template, let’s see how well it works for the current market environment.
Disclosure(s): short VIX at time of writing; the CBOE is an advertiser on my VIX and More blog
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