VIX volatility index, daily, 2021 to 2026

The VIX closed at 52.33 on April 8, 2025, the highest reading of this window, at the peak of the tariff selloff. The other dark clusters each mark a named panic: January 27, 2021 (37.21, the meme-stock squeeze), March 7, 2022 (36.45, the invasion of Ukraine), August 5, 2024 (38.57, the yen carry-trade unwind), and late March 2026 (31.05 on March 27, Middle East escalation and sticky services inflation).

How it is measured

The VIX is the Cboe Volatility Index: the market's expectation of S&P 500 volatility over the next 30 days, derived from index option prices and stated in annualized percent. One value per trading day, the closing level, via FRED. Weekends and market holidays have no reading and show as empty cells. Levels under 15 read as calm, the high teens as normal, above 30 as fear, and above 50 as panic seen only a handful of times in the index's history.

What the calendar shows

Each row of cells is a year, and fear arrives in clusters, not at random: a dark column appears, deepens for days or weeks, and fades. 2021 through 2023 each peaked in the high 30s or below; 2024's single violent day (August 5) interrupted an otherwise calm year; April 2025 is the darkest patch of the chart, five of the window's eight highest closes in a single month. The intervening stretches run pale for months at a time, which is the honest shape of volatility: long calm, short storms.