View for Skeptics, by Kim Zussman
Finally (yeah right), "how low can it go?"
Using same SP500 series of 20 day standard deviations, only 57/719 (8%) periods had st dev <0.004 (0.4%) like the period before last (1/19/07=0.0038). In the past 57 years, what happened in the 20 day following those with st dev<0.004? The next period st dev mean was 0.0044, slightly higher.
But interestingly 25/57 (44%) were actually lower the next period. So it seems looking back that volatility has frequently gone lower from periods comparable to today, even before we were protected by world-dominating military and Ben Putnanke.
This and the trumpets blowing for the breakout/new highs/Dow theory crowd doesn't look good for us skeptics.