The stock market is a lot like a duck at the moment. It's gliding along the water, occasionally changing direction or ruffling its feathers. Beneath the surface, though, investors are paddling furiously to navigate shifting financial currents.

Take the market's closely watched "fear gauge." The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, uses options prices to get a rough measure of how much choppiness investors expect in the S&P 500 index in the coming 30 days. At 17.5, it's below the index's long-term average.

But look at how much traders are paying to hedge against big moves up or down in individual stocks and a totally different picture emerges. That can be seen from a related measure, VIXEQ, which is above 50. It's derived from a similar calculation for each stock in the index, weighted by market value. Individual stock volatility is always higher, but the gap between the two just hit a record.