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This chart shows Volatility for American Express, defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: So, to derive the Daily Volatility on 3/12/2010 of 1.3%, the price range for the day (0.57) was divided by the average price (40.72). The Daily Volatility is obtained by dividing the daily range by the daily average. A longer Volatility period such as Weekly Volatility is obtained by dividing the weekly price range by the weekly mean price. It is important to avoid confusing this with the weekly average of the daily volatility, which is a completely different concept. For reference, the price is plotted in red. Volatility, as measured through various intervals, ( Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly) is plotted according to color. Investors often make a distinction between the concept of Volatility, and the concept of Risk. Academics define them to be exactly equivalent, but as can be seen here, there is good reason to distinguish between the levels of volatility or risk experienced across different time frames. Average Daily Volatility over the history of AXP has been 3% in contrast to the Average Quarterly Volatility of 24%. |
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You may be familiar with the "yield curve" which shows how interest bearing yields vary according to term. Each Volatility Curve is a snapshot in time. As the timespan across which Volatility is measured increases, the Volatility is expected to increase. The relationship between the length of time, and the expected change in price, is not linear, as is demonstrated by this chart. |
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This histogram is a frequency distribution of Daily Volatility, corresponding to the green points on the first chart on this page. |
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Similarly, the purple points on the top chart, the Quarterly Volatility Values, are subjected to frequency distribution here. |
Refined Volatility Risk Analysis for AXP : |
| Thursday, March 18, 2010: We have news on MicroSoft, ticker symbol MSFT. Signs of an over-bought condition have become noticable. Also, there are breaking events concerning Mylan Inc. and Patterson Companies, Inc.. From the News Archive: (3/17/2010 ) A favorable event happened at LoJack Corp. Meanwhile, bad news came from Walmart, Prudential Financial, Inc., and Sempra Energy. |