
The formula for the volatility of a particular stock can be derived by using the following steps:
- Firstly, gather daily stock price and then determine the mean of the stock price. ...
- Next, compute the difference between each day’s stock price and the mean price, i.e., Pi – P.
- Next, compute the square of all the deviations, i.e. (Pav – Pi)2.
- Next, find the summation of all the squared deviations, i.e. ∑ (Pav – Pi)2.
- Next, divide the summation of all the squared deviations by the number of daily stock prices, say n. It is called the variance of the stock price. ...
- Next, compute the daily volatility or standard deviation by calculating the square root of the variance of the stock. Daily volatility = √ (∑ (Pav – Pi)2 / n)
- Next, the annualized volatility formula is calculated by multiplying the daily volatility by the square root of 252. Here, 252 is the number of trading days in a year. ...
How do you calculate the volatility of a stock?
- Choose a stock and determine the time frame for which you want to measure. ...
- Enter the stock’s closing price for each of the 20 days into cells B2-B22, with the most recent price at the bottom. ...
- Next, you need to compute interday returns. ...
- In cell C23, enter “=STDV (C3:C22)” to calculate the standard deviation for the past 20 days. ...
What is the best measure of stock price volatility?
What Is the Best Measure of Stock Price Volatility?
- Standard Deviation. The primary measure of volatility used by traders and analysts is the standard deviation. ...
- Maximum Drawdown. Another way of dealing with volatility is to find the maximum drawdown. ...
- Beta. Beta measures a security’s volatility relative to that of the broader market. ...
How to calculate volatility correctly?
Calculate the volatility. The volatility is calculated as the square root of the variance, S. This can be calculated as V=sqrt(S). This "square root" measures the deviation of a set of returns (perhaps daily, weekly or monthly returns) from their mean. It is also called the Root Mean Square, or RMS, of the deviations from the mean return.
What is the formula for price volatility?
The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) has a beta value of 0.43 and has seen 8.86 million shares traded in the last trading session. The company, currently valued at $34.74B, closed the last trade at $47.71 per share which meant it lost -$1.39 on the day or -2.83% during that session.

What is a good volatility percentage?
The higher the standard deviation, the higher the variability in market returns. The graph below shows historical standard deviation of annualized monthly returns of large US company stocks, as measured by the S&P 500. Volatility averages around 15%, is often within a range of 10-20%, and rises and falls over time.
How do you calculate monthly volatility of a stock?
Add up the squares of the deviations you have calculated previously. Then divide this total by the number of months to find out the average of the squared deviations. This average is your variance. To calculate the monthly volatility, you must take the square-root of the variance.
Which indicator is used for volatility?
Some of the most commonly used tools to gauge relative levels of volatility are the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), the average true range (ATR), and Bollinger Bands®.
Is a high volatility good?
The speed or degree of the price change (in either direction) is called volatility. As volatility increases, the potential to make more money quickly, also increases. The tradeoff is that higher volatility also means higher risk.
What is volatility in stocks?
A stock whose price varies wildly (meaning a wide variation in returns) will have a large volatility compared to a stock whose returns have a small variation. By way of comparison, for money in a bank account with a fixed interest rate, every return equals the mean (i.e., there's no deviation) and the volatility is 0.
How many periods to represent the number of trading days in a year?
A smaller value would not give you very good results. In fact, the larger the value, the smoother your result becomes. You can also use 63 periods to represent the number of trading days in three months or 252 periods to represent the average number of trading days in a year. ...
Traditional Measure of Volatility
Most investors know that standard deviation is the typical statistic used to measure volatility. Standard deviation is simply defined as the square root of the average variance of the data from its mean.
A Simplified Measure of Volatility
Fortunately, there is a much easier and more accurate way to measure and examine risk, through a process known as the historical method. To utilize this method, investors simply need to graph the historical performance of their investments, by generating a chart known as a histogram .
Comparing the Methods
The use of the historical method via a histogram has three main advantages over the use of standard deviation. First, the historical method does not require that investment performance be normally distributed.
Application of the Methodology
How do investors generate a histogram in order to help them examine the risk attributes of their investments?
The Bottom Line
In practical terms, the utilization of a histogram should allow investors to examine the risk of their investments in a manner that will help them gauge the amount of money they stand to make or lose on an annual basis.
What is volatility in stock market?
The term “volatility” refers to the statistical measure of the dispersion of returns during a certain period of time for stocks, security, or market index. The volatility can be calculated either using the standard deviation or the variance of the security or stock.
What does higher volatility mean?
Higher volatility indicates that the value of the stock can be spread out over a larger range of values, which eventually means that the value of the stock can potentially move in either direction significantly over a short period.
Why is volatility important?
From the point of view of an investor, it is essential to understand the concept of volatility because it refers to the measure of risk or uncertainty pertaining to the quantum of changes in the value of a security or stock. Higher volatility indicates that the value of the stock can be spread out over a larger range of values, ...
What is the VIX index?
VIX is a measure of the 30-day expected volatility of the U.S. stock market computed based on real-time quote prices of S&P 500 call and put options.
What is volatility in stock market?
Volatility is the up-and-down change in the price or value of an individual stock or the overall market during a given period of time. Volatility can be measured by comparing current or expected returns against the stock or market’s mean (average), and typically represents a large positive or negative change.
What is VIX in stock trading?
The VIX, which is sometimes called the “fear index,” is what most traders look at when trying to decide on a stock or options trade. Calculated by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), it’s a measure of the market’s expected volatility through S&P 500 index options.
How to calculate volatility of a security?
The simplest approach to determine the volatility of a security is to calculate the standard deviation#N#Standard Deviation From a statistics standpoint, the standard deviation of a data set is a measure of the magnitude of deviations between values of the observations contained#N#of its prices over a period of time. This can be done by using the following steps: 1 Gather the security’s past prices. 2 Calculate the average price (mean) of the security’s past prices. 3 Determine the difference between each price in the set and the average price. 4 Square the differences from the previous step. 5 Sum the squared differences. 6 Divide the squared differences by the total number of prices in the set (find variance ). 7 Calculate the square root of the number obtained in the previous step.
What are the different types of volatility?
Types of Volatility. 1. Historical Volatility. This measures the fluctuations in the security’s prices in the past. It is used to predict the future movements of prices based on previous trends. However, it does not provide insights regarding the future trend or direction of the security’s price. 2.
What is beta in stock?
Beta The beta (β) of an investment security (i.e. a stock) is a measurement of its volatility of returns relative to the entire market. It is used as a measure of risk and is an integral part of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). A company with a higher beta has greater risk and also greater expected returns.
What is the VIX index?
VIX The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) created the VIX (CBOE Volatility Index) to measure the 30-day expected volatility of the US stock market, sometimes called the "fear index". The VIX is based on the prices of options on the S&P 500 Index.
What are the two types of options?
There are two types of options: calls and puts. US options can be exercised at any time. equal to the option’s current market price. Implied volatility is a key parameter in option pricing. It provides a forward-looking aspect on possible future price fluctuations.
What is Volatility?
Before attempting to understand how volatility is calculated it may be important to understand exactly what volatility is. Simply put, volatility is one tool used by investors to predict the amount of risk in a specific investment.
Volatility is Not Your Only Tool
Understanding volatility is important but it shouldn’t be the only tool used to determine whether an investment is right for your portfolio. Any measurement of data is only as good as the data provided.
How to calculate volatility in Excel?
To calculate the volatility of a given security in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, first determine the time frame for which the metric will be computed. For the purposes of this article, a 10-day time period will be used in the example. After determining your timeframe, the next step is to enter all the closing stock prices for that timeframe into cells B2 through B12 in sequential order, with the newest price at the bottom. (Keep in mind that if you are doing a 10-day timeframe, you will need the data for 11 days to compute the returns for a 10-day period.)
What is historical volatility?
Historical volatility is a measure of past performance; it is a statistical measure of the dispersion of returns for a given security over a given period of time. For a given security, in general, the higher the historical volatility value, the riskier the security is. However, some traders and investors actually seek out higher volatility ...
Why is volatility important?
Why Volatility Is Important For Investors. While volatility in a stock can sometimes have a bad connotation, many traders and investors actually seek out higher volatility investments. They do this in the hopes of eventually making higher profits. If a stock or other security does not move, it has low volatility.
Is historical volatility riskier?
For a given security, in general, the higher the historical volatility value, the riskier the security is. However, some traders and investors actually seek out higher volatility investments. You can calculate the historical volatility.
What is volatility in the stock market?
What is stock market volatility? Stock market volatility is a measure of how much the stock market's overall value fluctuates up and down. Beyond the market as a whole, individual stocks can be considered volatile as well. More specifically, you can calculate volatility by looking at how much an asset's price varies from its average price.
What is medium volatility?
Medium volatility is somewhere in between. An individual stock can also become more volatile around key events like quarterly earnings reports. Volatility is often associated with fear, which tends to rise during bear markets, stock market crashes, and other big downward moves.
What is the difference between beta and VIX?
Beta and the VIX. For individual stocks, volatility is often encapsulated in a metric called beta. Beta measures a stock's historical volatility relative to the S&P 500 index. A beta of more than one indicates that a stock has historically moved more than the S&P 500.
Why does the stock market pick up?
Stock market volatility can pick up when external events create uncertainty. For example, while the major stock indexes typically don't move by more than 1% in a single day, those indices routinely rose and fell by more than 5% each day during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Is volatility the same as risk?
It's important to note, though, that volatility and risk are not the same thing. For stock traders who look to buy low and sell high every trading day, volatility and risk are deeply intertwined. Volatility also matters for those who may need to sell their stocks soon, such as those close to retirement.
Is a blue chip stock more volatile than a tech stock?
Some stocks are more volatile than others. Shares of a large blue-chip company may not make very big price swings, while shares of a high-flying tech stock may do so often. That blue-chip stock is considered to have low volatility, while the tech stock has high volatility. Medium volatility is somewhere in between.

Traditional Measure of Volatility
A Simplified Measure of Volatility
- Fortunately, there is a much easier and more accurate way to measure and examine risk, through a process known as the historical method. To utilize this method, investors simply need to graph the historical performance of their investments, by generating a chart known as a histogram. A histogram is a chart that plots the proportion of observations that fall within a host of category r…
Comparing The Methods
- The use of the historical method via a histogram has three main advantages over the use of standard deviation. First, the historical method does not require that investment performance be normally distributed. Second, the impact of skewness and kurtosis is explicitly captured in the histogram chart, which provides investors with the necessary information to mitigate unexpecte…
Application of The Methodology
- How do investors generate a histogram in order to help them examine the risk attributes of their investments? One recommendation is to request the investment performance information from the investment management firms. However, the necessary information can also be obtained by gathering the monthly closing priceof the investment asset, typically found through various sour…
The Bottom Line
- In practical terms, the utilization of a histogram should allow investors to examine the risk of their investments in a manner that will help them gauge the amount of money they stand to make or lose on an annual basis. Given this type of real-world applicability, investors should be less surprised when the markets fluctuate dramatically, and therefore they should feel much more co…