The world's leading
independent volatility indexes.
Five precision-engineered indexes that strip away the distortions of legacy vol measures — giving you a clean, real-time read on what options are actually pricing.
VIX uses a broad basket of options at many strikes, which means it is heavily influenced by skew — the difference in price between puts and calls at different strikes. VolDex® uses only at-the-money options, giving you a pure, uncontaminated read on what the market expects for near-term moves.
Available for S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000, Gold, Crude Oil, Treasuries, and Bitcoin — VolDex® is the only independent ATM implied vol index family across all major asset classes.
CallDex® measures the cost of out-of-the-money call options relative to at-the-money options. When investors are aggressively buying calls — chasing rallies, hedging short exposure, or speculating — CallDex® rises.
Elevated CallDex® readings often coincide with frothy sentiment and can be a useful contrarian signal. Compare CallDex® to PutDex® using RiskDex® for a complete picture of market sentiment.
PutDex® tracks the cost of out-of-the-money puts — the options that institutions buy when they genuinely fear a market crash. Unlike VIX, which blends all strikes, PutDex® isolates the tail-protection trade specifically.
When PutDex® spikes sharply, large pools of capital are paying up for downside insurance. That is actionable information. PutDex® has historically led market dislocations by days to weeks.
RiskDex® is the ratio of PutDex® to CallDex® — giving you a single, normalized measure of whether the market is leaning bearish (expensive puts) or bullish (expensive calls). When RiskDex® is above 1, put demand dominates. Below 1, calls dominate.
RiskDex® cuts through the noise of narrative and gives you a clean read on what market participants are actually doing with their money in the options market.
TailDex® measures the cost of deep out-of-the-money puts — options that only pay off in genuine market crashes. Because few investors think they need this protection until it's too late, TailDex® tends to spike before the crowd realizes there's a problem.
TailDex® was elevated weeks before the COVID crash in 2020, and flashed warnings before both the 2018 Q4 selloff and the 2022 rate-driven bear market. It remains one of the most powerful leading indicators in the Nations index family.
Nations Indexes vs. the alternatives
Why VIX alone isn't enough — and how each Nations index fills a gap.
| Index | ATM Pure Vol | Call Demand Signal | Put / Fear Signal | Sentiment Ratio | Tail-Risk Warning | Asset Classes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VolDex® | ✓ | — | — | — | — | 12+ |
| CallDex® | — | ✓ | — | — | — | 5 |
| PutDex® | — | — | ✓ | — | — | 5 |
| RiskDex® | — | — | — | ✓ | — | 5 |
| TailDex® | — | — | — | — | ✓ | 3 |
| CBOE VIX | — | — | — | — | — | 1 |
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