Many have been waiting for a spike in the VIX indicator to signal that there is finally some fear in the market.  While historically that hasn't been a necessary precursor to a low (see here), it is a sign many were hoping to see.

It isn't exactly spiking at this point, but it has finally crossed above 20% for the first time in 57 trading days.

That's the longest sub-20 streak in nearly 5 years.  So let's go back to 1986 and look for every other time the VIX stayed below 20% for at least 50 trading days, then poked above that level, and see how the S&P fared going forward.

Over the next 50 trading days, stocks did quite well.  There was one minor loss out of 12 occurrences, but other than that the S&P returned a median of +5.0% during those 50-day stretches.

More impressively, all 12 instances rallied more than +3.5% at some point during the trades, but only 2 of them lost more than -3% at any point.

Far from being a precursor to increased volatility, historically these signals were a sign that the VIX was about to dip back under 20% during the next couple of months.