Up is Down?
So as I mentioned the other day that oversold volatility (bearish) was not as good a market signal as overbought (bullish). As per Rob at Quantifiable Edges, it is even worse than I thought.
Over the last 10 years, owning the S&P 500 when the VIX was more than 10% below its 10-day moving average was significantly more profitable on average than owning it when it wasn’t. Let me repeat that. Owning the S&P 500 when the VIX was more than 10% below its 10-day moving average was significantly more profitable on average than owning it when it wasn’t. To illustrate I ran a study:
Short the VIX on a cross of the lower 10% envelope of the 10-day moving average. Cover when it moved back above this envelope. From 5/98 until now there were 87 such trades. The average lasted just over 3 days. The S&P actually GAINED 91.09 points in the 272 days that this was in effect. That is an average of about 0.33 points per day. In the other 2,379 days the market only managed to gain 184.22 points – about 0.08 points per day. In other words, the market actually performed over 4 times BETTER when the VIX was stretched more than 10% below its 10-day moving average. Also, when this VIX-stretch was active the S&P made nearly 1/3 of its total gains in only 9% of the time.
Well that I would not expect. But to me the best way to look at an extended VIX is backwards. That is instead of using it as some sort of action signal, watch and see how the market reacts to the extended VIX. In bear trends for example, the rallies tend to peter out as the VIX gets oversold. In hindsight, a good clue that the intermediate trend was up was when the market did not sell off on an oversold VIX.
But if you are looking for better market signals, Rob does have some criteria.
So is the whole low VIX = complacency thing a fallacy? Not completely. Many times it will lead to a selloff. Here’s a system which demonstrates that. Again, last 10-years is the time period. 1) Short the S&P 500 when the VIX crosses from below to above the lower 10% envelope but remains below its 10-day moving average on a closing basis. 2) Exit the trade when the VIX closes above its 10-day moving average. Here you would have had 58 trades. The average trade would have made you about 7 S&P points and the total system gain, or S&P points lost, over the time period is 403.17 – a very substantial number.
To sum up - just because the VIX is “low” doesn’t mean the market is about to fall. In fact a good portion (about 1/3) of the S&P gains over the last 10 years have come under these conditions. When the VIX moves out of complacent territory and back towards its mean, then the market is susceptible to a decline.