India VIX back near 11: how fast the fear gauge fell

Where it stands now

India VIX closed at 11.32 on Wednesday 19 August 2026. On 30 March it closed at 27.89, its highest of the year and its highest since March 2022. In under five months it has fallen 59%.

Its lowest close this month was 11.31 on 14 August, the lowest since 13 January. Every August close so far has sat between 11.31 and 12.25.

The figures are NSE's daily closing values, which we hold from 14 May 2014.

The way down

The monthly average has fallen every month since March. The milestones along the way:

• Below 20 on 8 April, at 19.70, a 20% drop in one session as the Nifty 50 rose 3.78%.
• Below 15 on 27 May, 38 sessions after the peak.
• Below half the peak on 16 June, at 13.36.
• Below 12 on 3 July.

Fast or slow?

Our record has two other recent spikes of similar height, and they came down at very different speeds:

The 2026 decline sits in between: far quicker than 2022's, which took most of a year to drop below 15, and far slower than June 2024's, which was over within a week.

What the gauge now implies

India VIX is the options market's estimate of the Nifty 50's volatility over the next 30 days, as an annualised percentage. Dividing by 3.46, the square root of 12, gives a rough one-month figure:

What has actually happened agrees with the calm. Measured as the annualised standard deviation of daily returns, the Nifty's realised volatility over the 23 sessions from 20 July to 19 August was 9.2%, a little below VIX. In March it was 25.7%.

Calm is not the same as recovered

A low VIX describes how much the market expects prices to move, not where they are. The Nifty 50 closed at 24,078.30 on 19 August. That is 7.8% above its 30 March close of 22,331.40, but still 8.5% below its record close of 26,328.55 from 2 January.

The record shows how quickly calm and fear can trade places. VIX closed at 9.15 on 26 December 2025, the lowest in our twelve-year record. Three months later it was 27.89.

Of 3,015 closes since May 2014, only 6.5% were below today's level.

What this does not tell you

Low VIX is not a forecast of calm. It is the market's current estimate for the next 30 days. December 2025's record low came three months before this year's spike.

It is about the Nifty 50, not your fund. A small-cap or sectoral fund's own volatility can be much higher than the index's.

The rule of thumb is rough. It assumes a bell curve, which index returns often do not follow.

None of this is advice to buy, sell or hedge anything.

Where to go from here

Our March post on VIX at 26.73 covers the climb that this one unwinds. For valuations as prices recovered, see the Nifty 50 P/E in August and the live Nifty P/E page. And for why calm periods tempt investors to take more risk, recency bias is worth ten minutes.