Hi Rookie and PhilipP.
I thought you might like to see this longer term chart of the VIX back to 1994, to view the sorts of peaks you get in market collapses like 2009 and 2000.
The S&P 500 is overlaid in red.
Its from Yahoo Finance, where I clicked on “Interactive Chart” and then drew the lefthand bar on the dates box to the left to expand the dates displayed by the chart.
One theoretical (mathematical) problem you may have with your research is the VIX is simply showing the volatility (or extent of price variability) in the plots on the S&P 500 chart.
Price variability (volatility) goes up when the market tanks because the daily chart plots of the index move farther each day (on average) when the market is falling, and don’t show such large variability in daily price moves when in a bull market.
So there’s a kind of inverse correlation between VIX & S&P 500 - the VIX surges when the S&P 500 is falling, and does very little when the index is moving upwards.
So the VIX merely reports the amount of price volatility being experienced by the S&P 500. So whatever you can see on the VIX, it is present on the S&P 500 chart - the VIX is merely reporting the degree of price variability in the plots on the S&P 500 chart.
In a market crash, the daily S&P 500 plots are jagged and large, so the VIX moves up.
In a bull market, things are much more sedate as the index ambles slowly higher - the daily plots are smaller and closer together, and so the VIX has very little activity to report, so its level stays lower.
The VIX merely reports how far apart the plots are on the S&P 500 chart.
I wonder if examining the VIX will be of rather limited use, i.e. if the market is crashing we can see that on the S&P 500 chart, so will it really add very much if we can also see that the VIX is surging to higher levels? The VIX can only report what we can already see on the index chart.
Sadly there is no magic there, I think.
And when, after a crash, the index bottoms and starts to move higher, we can see that that has happened on the index chart - the fact that the VIX is now dropping doesn’t really add anything.
However, I can see that some people might find it helpful to see that the VIX is on an upward trend - but to be on an upward trend then the index must be falling, and that will be printed for you to see on the S&P 500 chart.
What I think I’m saying is I don’t think examining the VIX adds anything that the index isn’t already showing you because the VIX is directly calculated from the action that the index plots are showing.
Sorry to have to say this, but I don’t think viewing the VIX chart can assist with trading. However, I may well be wrong.
Also this is quite an interesting introduction to the theoretical side of technical indicators - the VIX can be thought of as a technical indicator reporting something about the index - it reports how wildly or quietly the plots are appearing on the index chart.
The problem with this (and probably all technical indicators) is they are mostly derived from price plots, so what can they possibly tell you that you can’t already see on the chart?
If they are completely derived from the price action, which is already printed on the chart, what more can they possibly tell you?
This is kind of a deep theoretical, almost philosophical, question.
If you have the stream of price data, how can doing arithmetic with that price data give you more than the price data already shows?
Logically, you would have to guess, the answer must be very little.
Except maybe indicators that report momentum like MACD and KST - their plots on their charts do seem to reveal something that the human can’t readily detect from the price chart alone.
So maybe I have just destroyed my own argument! 
I hope you haven’t found these observations annoying - maybe I should keep quiet and let you do your own experiments, and then wait to see what conclusions you eventually come to, and post on here, about the VIX and whether you do, in fact, find it useful and helpful in trading.
But we are trying to help one another in a collaborative process, so I thought I’d chip in with my 2 cents worth - and maybe that is truly all they are worth.
LB
