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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This chart shows Volatility for Harley-Davidson, Inc., defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: For instance, on 6/25/2010 the average price was 24.08 with a range of 0.82, indicating a Daily Volatility of 3.4%. 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. For reference, the price is plotted in red. 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 HOG has been 3% in contrast to the Average Quarterly Volatility of 29%. |
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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. From left to right, each position plots the Volatility associated with increasing intervals of time. However, as seen in this plot of the HOG Volatility Curve, the increase is not constant. |
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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 HOG : |
| Thursday, July 29, 2010: We have news on Automatic Data Processing, ticker symbol ADP. A significant moving average event has happened. Also, there are breaking events concerning St. Jude Medical, Inc. and W.W. Grainger, Inc.. From the News Archive: (7/28/2010 ) Favorable events happened at Cummins Inc. and Quest Diagnostics Incorporated. Meanwhile, bad news came from Harris Corporation and MetLife, Inc.. |