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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How to Read the Metrics & Histories

Everything! Analytics · Foundations

Free to read

How to Read the Metrics & Histories

Pick an underlying, read the live level against its lifetime and 52-week statistics, check whether an extreme is structural or recent — then download the archive. Four moves.

The Everything! display is built around one idea: every live reading should arrive pre-contextualized. You should never have to ask "is this high?" — the statistics column answers it. Here is how to work through the display.

Step 1 — Pick the underlying and the index

Select the underlying (any tracked ETF or single name) and the index (VolDex®, CallDex®, PutDex®, RiskDex®, TailDex®, TermDex®, or an analytics tool reading). The display loads the live reading and the full history panel simultaneously. The history panel is not a separate view — it is the same page, scrolled down, and it is always populated.

The Everything! display — live + history Live & Statistics History Panel UnderlyingSPY ▾ IndexVolDex® ▾ Live: 22.4 Lifetime %ile: 87th 52-wk %ile: 79th Lifetime z-score: +1.9 52-wk high / low: 28.1 / 13.6 today ↓ Download CSV

The live reading and statistics are on the left; the history chart and CSV download are on the right. Both update when you change the underlying or index selector.

Step 2 — Read the live level and the statistics

The live reading is the current index value. Immediately below it are four statistics: lifetime percentile rank (rank vs the full archive since 2005), 52-week percentile rank (rank vs the trailing year only), lifetime z-score (standard deviations from the lifetime mean), and the 52-week high and low. Read these in order. First check the lifetime rank: is today structurally extreme? Then check the 52-week rank: is it extreme even within recent experience? Then read the z-score: how many standard deviations out are we?

Step 3 — Read the history chart

The history chart plots the daily archive as a line, with the current reading as the final point. You can zoom the chart to any date range — full history back to 2005, or any custom window. The chart makes structural patterns visible: persistent regimes, sudden spikes, gradual trends. The percentile bands (25th–75th) are overlaid as a shaded range so you can see at a glance when the reading was in or out of its typical band.

Step 4 — Download the archive

The Download CSV button exports the full daily archive for the selected underlying and index: date, daily index level, and (where applicable) the computed statistics. The file is clean — no extra formatting, ready to open in a spreadsheet or read into any analysis environment. This is the data for serious workflows: pairing with the Strategy Backtester, running conditional analysis, building custom dashboards. Download once; update incrementally as new daily readings arrive.

Two common misreads

Misread 1: Treating a high lifetime percentile as a sell signal. Percentile rank describes where a reading sits in history; it is not a timer. Elevated can stay elevated for extended periods, especially in a persistent regime.

Misread 2: Ignoring the 52-week rank. If the market has been in a structurally elevated regime, everything will look high on lifetime stats. The 52-week rank tells you what is elevated within the current regime — often a more actionable question.

Do it live

Reading the display is free. Accessing lifetime and 52-week statistics, the full history chart, and CSV download requires Everything!. ETF live readings start with ETF Analytics; single names with ETF + Equities.

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

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