After many years of historically calm equity markets, 2018 is providing investors with a stark return to normal. For several years, the calm in the US stock market reached levels only touched occasionally during the boom years of the 1990s and late 2000s. The chart below tracks VIX, a measure of S&P equity market volatility, since 1990. The lines illustrate both last year’s historically low levels of volatility and this year’s relatively normal levels of elevated volatility. Read more here
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