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Notes on a quiet VIX

Eric Wills, CFA · 2026

When the VIX sits in the low teens for weeks at a time, it is tempting to read it as an all-clear. We read it differently: as a sale on protection.

Low realized volatility is not the same as low risk — it is often the market's way of underpricing it.

Compressed option premiums mean that the cost of building convexity into a portfolio is unusually low. For the patient investor, calm tapes are precisely when the asymmetric trade is cheapest to put on.


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