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The Nations Investor Optimism Index measures investor sentiment using option prices. A high reading indicates an abundance of optimism among investors while a low reading indicates a lack of optimism among investors.
The Index uses the rolling 2-year percent ranks of VolDex, TailDex, and RiskDex and normalizes for a 0 to 100 scale.
The average closing value is 50.71; the median closing value is 51.63.
The all-time high closing value of 99.43 was recorded on December 21, 2016.
The all-time low closing value of 0.07 was recorded on August 16, 2007.
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we create volatility & option cost indexes to help you trade better
Superior methodologies to generate more useful measures of option cost, implied volatility, option skew, and tail risk
The Nations family of volatility indexes measure vitally important facets of the option marketplace and do so for a wide range of asset classes including the first and only at-the-money volatility indexes for fixed income instruments and bitcoin.
What makes our indexes better?
Deconstruct Skew
By deconstructing skew, traders can develop a deeper understanding of what is really happening in option markets.
More Intuitive Indexes
Some of our indexes measure the normalized price of options rather than implied volatility. This results in a more intuitive, understandable index value rather than sometimes arcane measures of implied variance like VIX.
Volatility Skew
Volatility skew is the tendency for options with different strike prices to display different implied volatilities. Our indexes quantify this effect, allowing traders and investors to create trade structures which take advantage of skew or mitigate its impact.
Better Measures
Because our indexes deconstruct skew, they’re superior in measuring important elements of the option market for a wide range of underlyings including individual equities. The expected impact of an earnings release on option prices is now understandable..
Improved and Investable Measures of Option Cost, Implied Volatility, Option Skew, Tail Risk and Term Structure
Why use anything other than VIX? Learn more about our proprietary options analytics, including VolDex®, CallDex®, PutDex®, RiskDex®, and TailDex® and how they can help traders gain a better view of market environments.
Want To Understand Options Better?
Take our free course, where we explain volatility indexes and how we use them to understand the markets better.
When you finish, you’ll be able to see opportunities and dangers better and construct trades that have a better chance of profit.
About Scott Nations
Scott Nations is the president of Nations Indexes. He spent more than two decades as a proprietary option trader on the trading floors in Chicago where he and the Nations Indexes team originally developed the Nations Indexes to improve their own trading.
Scott is a regular contributor to CNBC, where he frequently appears on-air to discuss markets, derivatives, and other investment topics.
He is the author of two technical books for option traders, “Options Math for Traders” and “The complete book of Option Spreads and Combinations.” He is also the author of two general-interest books, “A History of the United States in Five Crashes” which is a history of the modern stock market crashes and which received the Amazon Editor’s Pick award for Best History, and “The Anxious Investor.”
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