Our Indexes

The world's leading
independent volatility indexes.

Five precision-engineered indexes that strip away the distortions of legacy vol measures — giving you a clean, real-time read on what options are actually pricing.

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VolDex®
A better way to measure option volatility
VolDex® focuses on the options that matter most—at-the-money (ATM) options with near-term expirations—giving a cleaner, more accurate view of implied volatility.

By isolating these highly liquid and actively traded contracts, VolDex avoids the distortion caused by less relevant, far out-of-the-money options. The result is a more precise snapshot of market expectations for price movement and investor sentiment—without the noise.
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CallDex®
A clearer signal of bullish sentiment & expected volatility
CallDex® tracks the cost of out-of-the-money call options to gauge market sentiment for the next 30 days. It uses call options that are one standard deviation out-of-the-money to measure what investors are expecting in terms of both volatility and potential price direction.

Higher CallDex values generally suggest traders are anticipating bigger moves or a possible market rally. Lower values indicate a calmer outlook or reduced interest in upside exposure.
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PutDex®
Focused on downside risk pricing
PutDex® delivers a clear, strike-specific measure of implied volatility by concentrating on one key data point: the normalized cost of a 30-day, one standard deviation out-of-the-money (OTM) SPY put option.

This approach isolates the segment of the options market most directly associated with downside protection, removing the noise from less relevant strike prices. The result precisely indicates market sentiment around tail risk, hedging activity, and bearish positioning.

By zeroing in on these put options—widely used by institutional investors to protect against market declines—PutDex offers valuable insight into how much investors are willing to pay to insure against losses over the next month.
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RiskDex®
A Clear Signal of Expected Market Direction
RiskDex® measures investor sentiment by comparing the normalized cost of 30-day, one standard deviation out-of-the-money (OTM) SPY put and call options. This simple ratio reveals whether the market is more focused on downside protection or upside opportunity — offering a direct view of expected equity direction over the next month.

Unlike traditional volatility indexes, which reflect overall price movement, RiskDex highlights directional bias. A rising RiskDex indicates OTM put prices are increasing at a faster rate than OTM call prices and suggests growing concerns about potential declines; a lower reading signals confidence or complacency.

This makes RiskDex a valuable tool for traders and risk managers seeking clarity on where the market thinks it's headed—not just how volatile it might be.
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TailDex®
A smarter signal for downside risk & tail hedging demand
TailDex® measures the price of deep out-of-the-money put options to assess bearish sentiment and demand for tail risk protection over the next 30 days. By focusing on puts that are three standard deviations OTM, it reflects how concerned traders are about a major downside move, often called a 'tail event'.

Higher TailDex values suggest rising demand for crash protection or increased fear of large selloffs. Lower values imply a calmer market tone and less urgency to hedge against tail risk.
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The Everything! Tier, Explained

Everything! Analytics · Foundations

Free to read

The Everything! Tier, Explained

Live readings are available on every tier. Everything! adds what turns a reading into a decision: the complete daily archive, lifetime and 52-week statistics, and CSV download — on every index, on every tracked underlying.

Every Nations Indexes tier shows you what the indexes read right now. The ETF Analytics tier covers the core ETFs; ETF + Equities extends that to the largest, highest-option-volume U.S. single names. Both deliver live readings and the analytics tools.

Everything! adds a third dimension: time. Every index — VolDex®, CallDex®, PutDex®, RiskDex®, TailDex®, TermDex®, and the full suite of analytics tools — back to 2005, with the complete daily archive available as a downloadable CSV. On top of that, the platform computes lifetime and 52-week summary statistics — high, low, percentile rank, and z-score — so every live reading arrives pre-contextualized against its own history.

Why history is the edge

A single reading only means something against its own past. A VolDex® reading of 22 is not high or low; it's only high relative to where it has spent most of its life. The percentile rank tells you that immediately: 22 at the 85th percentile means options are historically expensive; 22 at the 30th means they're cheap for this name. Without the archive, you're reading a compass with no map. With it, every live reading arrives with its full distribution already computed.

A live reading vs its full history highmedianlow index level daily archive (2005 → today) today — 87th %ile 75th percentile

Illustrative. Today's index reading (amber dot) arrives pre-ranked against the full daily archive. Here it sits at the 87th lifetime percentile — historically elevated, not just a big number. Without the archive, the dot is just a number.

What Everything! covers

The tier includes every Nations index on every tracked underlying. That means all the core ETFs (SPY, QQQ, IWM, TLT, GLD, and the rest) plus the largest, highest-option-volume U.S. single names — technology, financials, energy, consumer — anywhere Nations indexes are computed. For each underlying and each index, the full daily archive runs back to 2005, and the platform surfaces both lifetime statistics (computed over the entire available history) and 52-week statistics (the trailing year only).

Lifetime vs 52-week statistics

Both sets of statistics — high, low, percentile rank, z-score — are computed on-site, but they answer different questions. Lifetime statistics place a reading in its full structural context, spanning multiple market regimes. They're the right yardstick when you want to know whether something is genuinely extreme in market history. 52-week statistics tell you where a reading sits relative to the past year only — useful for recent-regime comparisons, earnings seasonality, or when you suspect the structural regime has shifted and the lifetime stats would be misleading. Using both together gives you a near- and long-run lens on the same reading.

Downloadable CSV histories

The archive is not just readable on-site — it is exportable. Any index, on any tracked underlying, downloads as a clean CSV: date, level, and (where applicable) the computed statistics. This is the data that powers serious research workflows: conditioning analysis, backtesting entry rules, building custom dashboards, or pairing with the Nations Strategy Backtester to verify whether a signal had historically useful forward properties. The CSV is the raw material; what you build with it is up to you.

What history is not

The archive is context, not a prediction engine. A high percentile rank says this reading is rare by its own history; it does not say a reversal is imminent. Markets can spend extended periods at extremes, and new regimes can permanently shift the distribution. History informs; it doesn't guarantee.

Do it live

Live readings and the analytics tools are available at every tier. The full daily archive, lifetime and 52-week statistics, and CSV download are exclusive to Everything!. ETF coverage starts with ETF Analytics; single names with ETF + Equities.

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Educational content from Nations Indexes. VolDex®, CallDex®, PutDex®, RiskDex®, TailDex®, and TermDex® are marks of Nations Indexes. Diagrams are schematic. Nothing here is investment advice.

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