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This chart shows Volatility for Nordstrom, Inc., defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: So, to derive the Daily Volatility on 7/1/2009 of 3.8%, the price range for the day (0.77) was divided by the average price (20.26). 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. The red plot shows the actual price. The remaining marks on the plot correspond to the Volatility measured across several time intervals. 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. During 23 years, the Average Quarterly Volatility of JWN stock price has been 31% while the Average Daily Volatility has been 4%. |
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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. However, as seen in this plot of the JWN Volatility Curve, the increase is not constant. |
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A frequency distribution of the green points on the first chart (the daily volatility) yields this histogram. |
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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 JWN : |
| Wednesday, July 01, 2009: We have news on Pitney Bowes Inc., ticker symbol PBI. A significant moving average event has happened. Also, there are breaking events concerning Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. and Pinnacle West Capital Corporation. From the News Archive: (7/1/2009 ) A favorable event happened at The Travelers Companies, Inc.. Meanwhile, bad news came from Fiserv, Inc., MeadWestvaco Corp., and Nicor Inc.. |