Equity indexes were lower on Friday, ending a week of roller-coaster trading, while the CBOE Volatility Index continued to act oddly.
The S&P 500 lost 11.60 points to close at 1782.59, in the middle of the day's range. The SPX broke below 1775 early but then cut much of those losses and almost turned green in the afternoon before falling into the close. It has support at 1760 and resistance at 1815.
The Nasdaq 100 fell 10.49 points to 3521.92. It did make it into positive territory but wasn't able to hold those gains. Support is at 3460 and resistance at 3600.
The Russell 2000 retreated 8.48 points to 1130.88. Resistance is at 1165, while the small-cap index has some support at 1120 and then at 1100.
The VIX was up 1.12 points, or 6.48 percent, to 18.41. That was not far off the morning high of 18.99 and showed very strong action given the movement in the S&P 500 and the fact that the volatility index is usually weaker on Fridays because weekend time decay is priced into the SPX options on which the VIX is based. The volatility index and the S&P 500 typically trade inversely.
The VIX futures were also up sharply, with the front-month February contracts up 0.95 points to 17.60. That moves the VIX term structure into backwardation as those futures are now above both March and April. March futures were up 0.75 points to to 17.35 as the April contracts gained 0.45 to 17.35