Construction and properties of volatility indices for Austria, Finland and Spain

The volatility index of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (VIX) is the first to have been introduced and it has attracted international imitators world-wide since it is considered as a barometer of investor fear. The aim of the paper is threefold. First, by following the VIX methodology, we construct a volatility index for three European countries (Austria, Finland and Spain) that do not have yet that piece of market information for investors. Second, we investigate the properties of the new volatility indices. In particular, we test their ability to act as fear indicators and as predictors of future returns. Moreover, we shed light on the term structure of the proposed volatility indices, by computing spot and forward implied volatility indices for different time to maturities (30, 60 and 90 days). Our results indicate that volatility indices are useful not only for investors to improve their trading decisions, but also for policy makers to choose the appropriate economic measure to guarantee stability in the market.