The Week

Pro Vix Shrt Fut (VIXY.US) fell 1.21% this week to close at $17.09, down from $17.30 last Friday. The S&P 500 lost 0.08% over the same period, so the ETF underperformed by about 1.13 percentage points. The week opened at $17.88 on Monday, pushed to an intraweek high of $18.13 on Wednesday, then pulled back over the next two sessions before finishing at $17.09 on Friday. The weekly range was 6.74%, and average daily volume of about 28.0m shares ran roughly 19% above the median.

Cboe Volatility Index This Week

The Cboe Volatility Index fell 6.5% to close at 14.81. It opened the week at 17.50, rallied to 18.94 on Wednesday, then sold off sharply, ending Friday near the week’s low of 14.80. Over a 60-day window, the index has ranged from 20.88 to 13.80, so the current close sits in the lower half of that range and below the 20-day moving average of 15.70.

Leverage & Decay

VIXY.US is designed to track the daily move of the Cboe Volatility Index at 1x leverage. The underlying index fell 6.5% for the week, so a simple 1x weekly path would have produced a similar 6.5% decline. Instead, VIXY.US lost only 1.21%, leaving a gap of 5.29 percentage points. That gap comes from daily rebalancing: when the underlying first spikes and then gives back its gains, the daily reset amplifies path drag. The weekly return of a leveraged product can therefore differ materially from the underlying’s week-to-date move, and holding it over time does not equal a stable multiple of the index’s weekly performance.

Cboe Volatility Index News

News flow this week centred on the Federal Reserve’s rate hike. From Monday to Thursday, markets debated whether the Fed would hike and by how much. On Wednesday, the Cboe Volatility Index briefly traded at 18.7, up 8.7% on the day. After the hike landed on Thursday, the Dow fell 775 points, the S&P 500 lost 0.70%, and the Nasdaq slipped 0.26%, while the volatility index pulled back to finish the week at 14.81. Attention then turned to October, with the median dot suggesting another hike this year and strategists split on the volatility outlook.

The Week Ahead

Next week brings a run of US macro releases: the Richmond Fed composite index on Tuesday, EIA crude inventories on Wednesday, and initial jobless claims, the current account balance, and new home sales on Thursday. These numbers will show how the labour market and housing demand are responding after the hike, and will feed directly into how markets price the odds of another move in October. For the Cboe Volatility Index, the short-term path will respond to those data surprises.

In Short

VIXY.US fell less than its underlying index this week, but the outperformance is mostly a product of daily rebalancing path drag rather than any structural edge. The index itself pulled back after the Fed’s decision, while next week’s macro calendar leaves the pricing of future hikes unsettled. The key to watch is whether the Cboe Volatility Index can hold its current range and whether the data flow triggers a fresh round of volatility pricing, without making directional calls.

This article is generated by LongbridgeAI from market data, for information only and not investment advice.