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An interesting Email I had From Daily Trend Watch (price hedleys)
Many market commentators are suggesting of late that the low points in the CBOE Volatility Index (usually known as VIX, but here we focus on the VXO which uses the original S&P 100 Index as its base) were a sign of too much optimism in the market. While that proved true on a short-term basis, I wanted to point out the longer-term levels in the VXO that have defined the type of market we are experiencing. In the bull market days of the early to mid-1990s, note how volatility never really stayed above the 20% to 25% levels (drawn in by two horizontal red lines in the monthly chart below). This was a very favorable period to buy and ride the stock market for steady annualized gains approaching 20% in most years except 1994, which acted as a sideways market. But notice that starting in the summer of 1997, the VXO started to form a higher level of volatility. In the fall of 1997 the Dow plunged over 500 points in a day on fears of deflation from the "Asian contagion" of falling prices in the Fart East. Then the market settled down and recovered, bringing the VXO back to a new low around 20% in early to mid 1998. Then in the late summer of 1998, the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund debacle occurred, causing another spike in volatility up near 60%. But as the markets recovered, notice how the VIX again failed to pierce the 20% threshold as the new lower boundary for volatility in late-1998 and the middle of 1999. Then as tech stock started to crater, the VXO would pop up into the 35-40% zone, only to settle back near 20% in the summers of 2000 and 2001, the latter occurring right before the VXO surge into and after 9/11. Then one more settling back near 20% occurred in early 2002, right before the summer plunge in the markets on the fallout from the corporate scandals from Enron and WorldCom among other concerns of corporate fraud. But notice how in the fall of 2003, as the market continued to plow ahead, this 20% VXO barrier was breached to the downside. To me, this implies that we are moving into a period of better trending markets to the upside, with lower risk than what many have grown accustomed to. So the recent spike in the VXO up to just over 21% followed by a turn back down under 20% suggests that we are seeing a likely buying opportunity in the midst of the short-term fears about terrorism in Spain and election concerns about which candidate will win the presidency. While there is no certainty on a short-term basis that things can't get worse, my expectation is to buy this dip as long as the VXO is not spiking over the 25% level. If we get over 25%, then we could be in for rougher sledding to come. But until then, the big picture says that things changed for the better in late-2003, and that spikes up into the 20-25% zone should be bought like we saw back in the mid-1990's. Monthly Chart of the OEX-Based CBOE Volatility Index (VXO)rgds
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