VIX falls again as equities close mixed
The major equity indexes ended yesterday's session mixed, but the CBOE Volatility Index and its near-term futures were lower.
The S&P 500 Index was up 2.04 points to close at 1554.52. It opened the session by falling near 1548 but climbed above 1556 and settled into the close about a point off of Monday's five-year high. The SPX remains 10 points off its all-time closing high from 2007. Resistance remainst at 1565 and support at 1525.
The Nasdaq 100 was down 2.13 points to close at 2798.68. It followed a similar intraday pattern but finished right in the middle of the day's range. The NDX again proved unable to break out of the very tight range it has seen for the last two weeks. Resistance is still at 2846 and support at 2760.
The Russell 2000 climbed to yet another all-time high, gaining 3.64 points to 943.90. The small-cap index finished just off its afternoon high. It has support at 916.
The VIX gave up 0.33 points, or 3.6 percent, to close at 11.83. That was above Monday's close, which was the volatility index's lowest since February 2007 (partly because of a statistical quirk).
The March VIX futures, were down 0.30 points to close at 12.95, a tick below Monday's close. The April futures lost 0.15 points to finish at 14.65. This had the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Note (:VXX) VXX down 0.18 or 0.86 percent to 20.93, just above Monday's all time closing low.
More than 519,000 VIX options changed hands, with 396,000 calls outpacing puts by more than 3 to 1. The VVIX Index, which measures the implied volatility of those options, was up 5.5 percent to 84.36, suggesting that traders were mostly buying those VIX contracts. The SKEW Index is also showing that there is some concern showing through in the option data.
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