This has been a good year for volatility. If you like that kind of stuff, that is. It's not that volatility has reached stratospheric levels; it's just that it's returned to a normal level. It wasn't too long ago—think November—that the Cboe Volatility Index (CBOE: VIX) scraped a historic bottom at 9.14 percent.

And now?

Well, take a gander at the chart below. VIX—depicted by the black line—dropped off precipitously from February's level and is now bouncing around the 20 percent level. It seems volatility has, more or less, reverted to its mean.

There's evidence that recent market action is changing investor's appetite for risk. You'll see this represented by the red line in the chart. Risk appetite here is derived from the price ratio of the  over its sibling . There's a double top in the ratio bracketing the February VIX spike which makes a technical case for further deterioration in investors' enthusiasm for high-beta stocks.

Is that enough to worry you?

If not, consider the chart depicting the real-time level of investor confidence. When you put the price of the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLY) in ratio to that of the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (NYSE Arca: XLP), you can gauge how flush consumers—and, by extension,investors—feel. We last looked at the XLY/XLP ratio in our Feb. 12 column.