Chapter II: Risks associated with short and long period price changes can be understood through Volatility Analysis. Here the impact of the Volatility Curve on the potential profitability positions across different time spans is shown. |
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Volatility is defined as the price range for a period, divided by the average price for the period: So, to derive the Daily Volatility on 3/18/2010 of 1.6%, the price range for the day (0.32) was divided by the average price (19.28). 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. This is a different concept from the weekly average of daily volatility. The red plot shows the actual price. The remaining marks on the plot correspond to the Volatility measured across several time intervals. According to academic theory, Volatility is exactly equal to Risk. But investors often make a distinction between these two concepts. The different character of Volatility as seen in different time frames, lends some support to the investor's view. Average Daily Volatility over the history of GLW has been 3% in contrast to the Average Quarterly Volatility of 32%. |
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You may be familiar with the "yield curve" which shows how interest bearing yields vary according to term. These Volatility Curves each apply to a discrete time interval. 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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In a similar vein, the Frequency Distribution of the Quarterly Volatility is plotted here. This is the distribution of the values plotted in purple on the top chart from this page. |
Refined Volatility Risk Analysis for GLW : |
| 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 ) Favorable events happened at LoJack Corp and ACM Income Fund. Meanwhile, bad news came from LSI Corporation and Sempra Energy. |