The market typically views low volatility as a consequence of rising stock prices, but Citadel Securities believes this logic is currently reversing: the decline in volatility itself is becoming a new driver of capital flows.
Following a significant deleveraging process in global markets, rule-based selling pressure has noticeably weakened.
If 30-day and 60-day realized volatility continues to decline, volatility control, trend-following, and other systematic strategies will be able to withstand increased risk exposure, leading to renewed buying of stocks.
Citadel therefore predicts that the next significant mechanical capital flow in US stocks may shift from "deleveraging and selling" to "re-leveraging and buying."
A similar shift is observed in the semiconductor sector: the average 3-month ATM implied volatility of the 10 companies with the largest SOX weighting has decreased from approximately 76.6% in June to 60.8%, a drop of nearly 16 percentage points in a single month. This signifies that,
if low volatility persists, a positive feedback loop could form: decreased volatility → increased systematic buying → strengthened trends → further reduction in volatility.
The risk lies in the fact that this buying is highly dependent on the volatility environment; if volatility rises rapidly again, the mechanical buying logic could reverse.
