Chart of the Day - Wednesday, November 18th, 2020

Blue arrows when $vix <20 pic.twitter.com/tTzRkv2tBy

— Urban Carmel (@ukarlewitz) November 18, 2020

Today's Chart of the Day was shared on Twitter by Urban Carmel (@ukarlewitz). It's a chart of the S&P 500 over the past four years along with the Volatility Index ($VIX) below. The VIX hasn't closed below 20 since February 21st. That's 189 consecutive trading days, which is by far the longest streak since the Financial Crisis (h/t @SentimenTrader). That streak is still alive with today's close of 23.84. As Urban points out, most of the S&P 500's gains in recent years have occurred when Volatility is in a range below 20. Perhaps we'll see Volatility get crushed in 2021 like the last two post-election years (2013 and 2017). Both of those years were a steady grind higher for the S&P 500 with very little downside volatility. But before we can even think about that, we need to see the VIX fall into a more 'normal' range below 20.