VIX Expiration

Today VIX expired at 16.49, up 0.11 since last expiration. My prediction made on Jan 20, 2011 was for 18.42 at the time when futures were trading at 18.80. While the forecast is slightly closer than the futures, it is considerably off this month.

At the time the forecast was made the index, futures and my forecast were around the same level of about 18-19. While lower forecast certainly made sense my model did not anticipate the unrest in Egypt, or susequent volatility decline. Since about Feb 4th VIX remained unchanged at around 16, and futures slowly declined to that level.

My forecast for March VIX is 17.44 vs 18.05 (yesterday's settlement) and VSTOXX at 21.39 vs 22.35 in the futures market. Question for the readers: is there an official settlement for VSTOXX, like VRO for the VIX?