S&P Dow Jones fined $9 million for volatility index lapse S&P Dow Jones fined $9 million for volatility index lapse Bloomberg Traders work in the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) pit on the floor of the Cboe Global Markets, Inc. exchange in Chicago in 2018. S&P Dow Jones Indices will pay $9 million to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was negligent overseeing a quality control feature of a volatility-related index that failed during a day of volatility in futures contract trading. In the settlement announced Monday, S&P Dow Jones Indices neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegation that the index provider disseminated "stale index values during a period of unprecedented volatility" in February 2018.