August just kicked off and volatility wasted no time crashing the party, as Wall Street’s favorite fear gauge logged its biggest daily jump in months—and it might not be done yet.
- SPY ETF is rising fast. Check the chart here.
If you’ve been around markets long enough, you know summer doesn’t always mean calm.
In fact, August and September are statistically the two most volatile months of the year for U.S. stocks.
Over the past 30 years, the S&P 500, tracked by the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:VOO), has averaged losses of 0.56% in August and 0.65% in September.
When August begins, Wall Street desks thin out, liquidity dries up, and every new data release or geopolitical tweet seems to hit the tape harder. This year is already living up to that playbook.
Last Friday, the CBOE Volatility Index—better known as the VIX—jumped 22% in one day, its biggest move since April’s tariff-driven selloff.
That followed a softer-than-expected July jobs report and …