VIX Term Structure
When short-term fear costs more than long-term fear, the market is in stress. Watch the flip.
Own pane · Daily · Any chart; data comes from VIX and VIX3M
What it shows
- One line: VIX3M divided by VIX, the shape of the volatility curve.
- Zones: comfortable contango, the flat danger strip, and backwardation (spot fear above three-month fear).
- A stress trigger when the curve inverts decisively, with markers and alerts.
- An alert on the flip back to contango, the classic tension-release read.
How it reads the market
In a normal market, longer-dated volatility costs more than spot. When that inverts, hedgers are paying up for protection right now, which historically marks stress that exhausts rather than trends. The flip back out of inversion is the other half of the story.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Symbols | VIX3M / VIX | Remappable if your feed names them differently. |
| Zone bounds | 1.00 and 0.95 | Where flat ends and deep backwardation starts. |
| VIX floor | 25 | The mild-inversion trigger also requires an elevated VIX. |
Everything is an input: colors, thresholds and time windows adjust from the indicator's settings panel, no code needed.
Built-in alerts
- Stress trigger on
- Curve back in contango
Set them once from TradingView's alert dialog and get notified on your phone, no chart-watching required.
Comes with the membership
The whole indicator suite is included with the paid plan, $20/month or $200/year. Subscribe, submit your TradingView username, and the scripts land in your TradingView library.
Founding offer: 50% off the first year, 6 days left.
Get full accessHow to add it to your chart
- Request access above with your TradingView username (one request covers the whole suite).
- We grant it on TradingView, usually within 24 hours; TradingView notifies you.
- On your chart, open Indicators → Invite-only scripts and add VIX Term Structure.
A context gauge; pair it with your levels and the market backdrop.