The markets sure had a wild and crazy week

Global markets went crazy this week, scrambling all those big narratives we had become so familiar with. The resurgent US dollar? Beaten back. The sturdy German stock market? Looking a little weak. Burned oil? On fire and up almost 10%. Tottering Greece? Well, Grexit fears are starting to feel very real, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. Yet even the mighty Bloomberg terminal couldn’t make it out unscathed, suffering a major outage and dragging down a UK sovereign debt auction with it.

All this makes it a perfect week, then, to check in with the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s volatility index, or VIX. Granted, it’s only a measure of options turnover for the S&P 500. And yes, it’s still down nearly 23% for the year. But it’s a useful snapshot that helps you realize you aren’t crazy, that everyone is as confused as you are.