VIX tells you how much the S&P 500 is expected to move over the next 30 days. VVIX tells you how much VIX itself is expected to move, and that second number matters more than most premium sellers realize. A calm VIX reading of 14 looks the same whether VVIX sits at 75 or 115, but those are two very different risk environments for anyone short premium.
Key takeaways:
- VVIX (ticker $VVIX) measures the implied volatility of VIX options, not the S&P 500 directly. It is “volatility of volatility.”
- Normal VVIX range is roughly 60-120. Above 90-100 signals the market expects VIX itself could jump sharply.
- A low VIX plus a high VVIX is the warning combination: current volatility looks calm, but the options market is pricing a real chance it won’t stay that way.
- VVIX spiked above 180 in March 2020 and above 120 during the August 2024 yen carry unwind, both preceding sharp volatility expansions.
- VVIX is not a timing signal. It can stay elevated for weeks before anything happens, or fade without a spike ever materializing.
What VVIX Actually Measures
VIX is built from the prices of SPX options. It answers one question: how much is the market pricing the S&P 500 to move over the next 30 days?
VVIX is built the same way, except the underlying is VIX options instead of SPX options. It answers a different question: how much is the market pricing VIX itself to move? That makes VVIX a second-order volatility measure, sometimes called “vol of vol.”
The distinction matters because VIX and VVIX can tell opposite stories at the same time. VIX describes the current weather. VVIX describes how confident the market is that the weather will stay this way.
Reading VIX and VVIX Together
Each combination of VIX level and VVIX level implies a different regime for anyone selling premium (iron condors, short strangles, credit spreads):
| VIX | VVIX | What it implies | Premium-selling read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low (under 15) | Low (under 80) | Calm market, and the options market agrees it should stay calm | Favorable for defined-risk premium selling, though premium itself will be thin |
| Low (under 15) | High (over 100) | Calm right now, but the market is pricing real odds of a sudden volatility jump | The warning case. Condors and strangles are cheap for a reason; size down or widen strikes |
| High (over 25) | Low (under 80) | Already elevated, and expected to stay in that elevated range rather than spike further | A stable-but-expensive regime. Often a reasonable environment to sell premium once a range forms |
| High (over 25) | High (over 100) | Elevated now and still uncertain about where it goes next | Both current and future volatility are in question. The highest-risk setup for undefined-risk selling |
The low VIX, high VVIX combination is the one that catches premium sellers off guard. Everything on the surface looks quiet: tight iron condor spreads are available for a few hundred dollars less margin than usual, strangle premium looks cheap to sell. But a VVIX reading above 100 is the options market telling you it does not share that calm, and that it is willing to pay up for protection against VIX itself gapping higher.
What Counts as a Normal VVIX Reading
VVIX has historically traded in a 60-120 range. A few reference points for calibrating a current reading:
- Under 80: Low vol-of-vol. The market has little expectation that VIX will move sharply from here, in either direction.
- 80-100: Normal range. Typical background level outside of stress periods.
- Above 100: Elevated. Worth checking what, if anything, is driving it (an upcoming Fed decision, a geopolitical event, a positioning unwind) before sizing new premium-selling trades.
- Above 150: Historically rare and associated with acute stress. VVIX traded above 180 in March 2020 as the market priced extreme uncertainty around both the pandemic shock itself and how much worse VIX could still get.
The August 2024 yen carry unwind is a useful, less extreme example: VVIX pushed above 120 as a rapid Bank of Japan rate move forced leveraged carry trades to unwind globally, and VIX itself spiked intraday to the high 60s before settling back down within days. VVIX was flagging the instability before the VIX spike fully played out.
The SKEW Index as a Companion Read
CBOE SKEW measures the relative price of far out-of-the-money SPX puts versus calls, essentially how much the options market is paying for tail-risk insurance. SKEW and VVIX are not the same thing, but they tend to move together during genuine stress and can diverge in informative ways.
VVIX elevated alongside SKEW elevated is a stronger signal than either alone: the market is pricing both “VIX could move a lot” and “a specific tail event is worth insuring against.” Seeing both elevated at once is a reasonable prompt to trim undefined-risk premium-selling exposure rather than add to it, even if neither VIX nor the underlying index has actually moved yet.
How to Check VVIX
VVIX trades under the ticker $VVIX on most platforms that carry index data, including thinkorswim, tastytrade, and TradingView. It is not an options product itself (there is no VVIX options chain the way there is for VIX), so the only use case is as a reference index to check before placing a trade, not something to trade directly.
A hypothetical illustration: a trader running a 45-DTE iron condor program checks $VVIX before every new entry alongside $VIX. On a day where VIX sits at 13 (calm) but VVIX has climbed to 105 (elevated), that trader might choose to widen the condor’s short strikes further from the current price, reduce position size, or simply skip adding a new position that cycle, purely as a risk-management adjustment, not as a directional bet on where the S&P 500 is headed.
What VVIX Does Not Tell You
VVIX is not a timing tool. An elevated reading can persist for weeks before any volatility expansion shows up, and it can also fade quietly with nothing happening at all. Treat it as a probability and risk-sizing input, not a signal that a spike is imminent on any specific day.
It also does not tell you direction. A VIX spike can accompany a market decline (the usual pattern) or, less commonly, occur alongside choppy sideways action. VVIX flags that volatility itself is unstable, not which way the underlying will move.
Bottom Line
VVIX measures how confident the options market is that the current VIX level will hold. A low VIX combined with a high VVIX is the case that deserves attention: it is the market quietly pricing in a chance that calm conditions won’t last, even while every other indicator looks fine. Checking VVIX alongside VIX before sizing new premium-selling trades costs nothing and catches a risk that VIX alone cannot show.
FAQ
Q: Is VVIX the same thing as VIX squared or VIX volatility in general?
A: No. VVIX is a specific CBOE index calculated from VIX options prices using the same methodology CBOE uses to calculate VIX from SPX options. It is a distinct, investable-in-concept (though not directly tradeable) measure, not a mathematical transformation of the VIX value itself.
Q: Can I trade VVIX directly with options or futures?
A: No. Unlike VIX, which has its own options and futures contracts, VVIX has no dedicated tradeable product. It functions purely as a reference index to check before trading other instruments, primarily VIX options and SPX/equity index premium-selling strategies.
Q: What’s a quick way to remember what VVIX is checking?
A: VIX asks “how much is the market expected to move?” VVIX asks “how sure is the options market about that VIX answer?” A high VVIX means low confidence in the current VIX reading holding steady.
Q: Does a high VVIX mean I should close existing premium-selling positions?
A: Not automatically. It is a risk-sizing input for new trades more than a signal to exit existing ones. A hypothetical trader might treat an elevated VVIX as a reason to size the next new position smaller or pass on adding one, while leaving positions that already have defined risk and sufficient time to expiration unchanged.
Q: Where can I check VVIX without a trading platform login?
A: CBOE publishes VVIX data on its own website alongside VIX, and most free charting sites that carry index tickers (not just brokerage platforms) carry $VVIX as well.
Related reading: what a record-low VIX actually means for premium sellers and hedgers.