CBOE Volatility Hits Record High in October

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX®) is a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices. Since its introduction in 1993, VIX has been considered by many to be the world's premier barometer of investor sentiment and market volatility.

The chart above was created using VIX data back to January 1990 using monthly values (available here from Yahoo Finance, except that for October 2008 the highest daily VIX value was used) showing that the VIX reached an all-time record high of 69.95 on October 10 (it fell back to around 55 on Monday and Tuesday of this week).

Thanks to Seyed Mehdian.