Stock indexes have started the year by driving around in circles, honking and laughing, like a clown car driven by a drug addict. Beep, beep! New lows, new highs, back to new lows! Hey, how does this thing work again?

As you can see in the chart of the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) below, there has been very little consistency since the new year dawned. The benchmark index started by falling almost 3%, then rallied sharply back to flat, then fell again, rallied back to flat again, and then pulled back once more this week to reassert a 3% setback.

The VIX, meanwhile, has spurted well ahead of its shadow, as usual: falling as much as 10%, rising as much as 15%, and then rinse and repeat. The only trend here is the lack of trend.

No worries. We have been through this a few times in the past, have we not? Every time that Wall Street gets overly excited about something, whether it be the “fiscal cliff,” “sequestration” or the Ebola virus, a plunge in oil prices or the Swiss franc ditching its euro peg, you can count on anxiety shooting through traders’ veins in a way that makes the VIX scramble higher to levels well out of proportion with the threat. And then not long afterward — maybe a few weeks, a month, or a couple of months — the threat recedes, anxiety abates, and the VIX plunges back to earth.

The CounterPoint Options system can capture the rise of volatility and the decline of stocks just as well as it can capture the opposite. But for the past couple of years, the system has primarily determined that playing for a return to calm and confidence — and higher stock prices — has been the way to go. That is the case now, as the system is recommending option positions that would benefit from rising stock prices and a lower VIX and bonds. As such, today’s recommendation is for a bearish trade on the iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasury Bond Fund (IEF).

Buy the IEF Mar. 20th $108 puts at $1.10 limit, good till canceled, for target $2.10. The option’s ticker is IEF150320P00108000, and it is the monthly IEF put option that expires on Friday, March 20.

Jon Markman operates the investment firm Markman Capital Insights. He also offers a daily trading advisory service, Trader’s Advantage, and CounterPoint Options, a service that helps individual traders make steady, consistent profits with volatility-related instruments.