The Low Fear Selloff

Now that most of the holiday-related “calendar reversion” (nicely coined by Adam at the Daily Options Report) is behind us, we have the opportunity to get a fresh look at unadorned volatility. You know what? There is not that much of it out there, particularly given the current market conditions.

Since the NASDAQ is suffering the brunt of the damage today, I have chosen to include a graph of the VXN, or NASDAQ-100 volatility index. Given the market conditions, you would expect the see the most ugliness here, yet volatility looks surprisingly tame, particularly since the NASDAQ Composite was down 78 points when this snapshot was taken.

I’m having a big storm here in Northern California, with high winds and frequent loss of power, so don’t be surprised if VIX and More ends up offline for awhile, as I am not particularly well hedged against meteorological volatility.

[Note that the image above is from Port Orford, Oregon, a current capture of the spectacular webcam from Home by the Sea, a B&B situated on a bluff overlooking Battle Rock Beach]