VIX projects what traders are thinking 30 days out. We can have a wide range tomorrow then go back into la de dah grinding ranges higher and index will likely only have a temporary blip, then go back into slumber mode again. I doubt many pay very much attention to it anymore (much like $TRIN and other market internals that worked in the past but no longer do), especially once CBOE came out with 0DTE's - except those who trade VIX futures. Even then I fail to see much use for it trading wise. It gives the know-nothing cable TV guys (looking at you Cramsky) something to get all hot and bothered over, about it.
According to the options guys around here, this is not something new the CBOE just "came out with". It has existed since options have existed. It is only now that it is getting press because like any other meme it caught fire with the Reddit crowd and is now in MSM.
Not projecting out, it calculated for 30 days past. Back in the days, a wise guy told me VIX/16, that’s the average swing % per days for the last 30 days, not sure he had the math to back it up but that’s the moving average explanation. 0DTE is not magic, it got retail folks or experienced traders excited because they knew selling options for premiums is a losing trade, not theta, so everyone is piling in buying calls. It is like you don’t sell lotto tickets, you buy them. MMs sells the tickets and cover with buying the shares, so the index is not falling. A friend spent 400-500 bucks a day buying spy calls only, win or loss, it is flipping a coin.
"The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) is a real-time index that represents the market’s expectations for the relative strength of near-term price changes of the S&P 500 Index (SPX). Because it is derived from the prices of SPX index options with near-term expiration dates, it generates a 30-day forward projection of volatility. Volatility, or how fast prices change, is often seen as a way to gauge market sentiment, and in particular the degree of fear among market participants." (Investopedia)
Daily expiring index options are not new? And weekly expiring index options are also not a few years old? You sure others here mentioned that?
Although it's not a perfect inverse correlation (whatever is) markets mostly move higher on narrower ranges, relatively speaking, and lower on wider ranges:-
There are more expiries added in the last few years, so we have one expiring nearly every day. But the options are not dailies at creation, but weeklies and monthly, that eventually have a day left and become 0dte. I read that most of this 0dte action they refer to, is buy/sell to close action. But yeah... Definitely not since they existed https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/analyzing-expiry-date-options-trading.374693/
in monitoring the 0DTE, there is WAY more volume than the open interest, so that implies it is opening positions.