Fear: The Index

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Cardiff Garcia

Published February 12, 2018 at 3:58 PM EST

There is this thing called the VIX. Some people call it the fear gauge. It was invented to measure people's expectations about how much the stock market is going to bounce around.

At some point, the VIX went from measuring expectations about the stock market. To being something people bet on.

Then, last week, when the market plunged, the role of the VIX may have gotten even larger: This thing that was invented to measure the stock market may have started driving the market itself.

On today's show, Tracy Alloway of Bloomberg News tells us the story of the VIX.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia