The relationship between high-yield credit spreads (the 'cost' of protecting the most equity-like of the credit-risky bond spectrum) and VIX (the 'cost' of protecting equities) tend to have a very stable and consistently correlated relationship driven by clear arbitrages between the two asset classes and corporate finance causation. Last July, VIX futures plunged while credit spreads remained less impressed... that ended badly for the penny-in-front-of-the-steamroller crowd who saw VIX spike back to credit's reality. May 2014 - as the chart below shows - is exhibiting the same kind of disconnect and VIX traders and credit market participants are concerned.
What does credit know that VIX doesn't?
[5]
Perhaps that everyone and their mum is short VIX futures...
[6]
h/t "a very smart Bostonite capital structure arbitrageur"