The last couple of days I had been warning of my concern about the VIX getting to low levels - dropping to 17.5  - clearly indicated that fear had left the market. Yesterday it snapped back up as the equity markets took on some serious selling pressure. Most of the morning we saw everything under pressure, but heading into the closing session we saw a significant rally off the bottom. Was it a buying opportunity? We did see some issues hit recent support areas - but those are rather short-term and we should expect to see some more up-n-down volatility. The VIX is still low at 18.60 - relative to the current economic environment. I would say yesterday was a quick reminder not to become too complacent with the long only equity position. The big jolt came as investors, after being told by Obama and Bernanke that the recession was over, have started raising the bar on expectations - but as the financials began reporting earnings the over-all message from their CEO's  was loan default are still a problem, we don't expect the job market to recover anytime soon, and we think the domestic economy is still fragile. Clearly not the 2010 message we had been expecting.