Satyam, Fraud, and the India VIX
Today’s announcement that Satyam (SAY), the Indian outsourcing giant, has been engaged in a massive accounting fraud over the course of several years sent Satyam down 78% in local trading and dragged the Bombay Sensex down 7.3%.
All things considered, I was once again surprised by the relatively small spike in the India VIX, which jumped 14.5% to close at 44.36.
In the chart below I have plotted the course of the India VIX since November 2007 (the index launched in April 2008, but historical data has been reconstructed extending back another six months.) I find it interesting that the scale of the India VIX is not that much different than that of its U.S. counterpart. I also find it interesting that concerns about the global financial crisis in October 2008 was responsible for the peak in the volatility index, while the Mumbai terrorist attacks the following month barely register as a blip on the chart.
It remains to be seen what sort of long-term fallout the Satyam fraud will have on Indian equities, but so far the reaction has to be considered a relatively muted one.
Keep in mind that after many failed attempts at a bottom in 2001 and 2002, the NASDAQ did not put in a bottom until just after the WorldCom bankruptcy filing.
