Chapter II: Understanding Price Volatility behaviour is essential to assessing the risk associated with positions across different time spans. |
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This chart shows Volatility for The New York Times Company, defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: For instance, on 2/18/2011 the average price was 10.63 with a range of 0.19, indicating a Daily Volatility of 1.7%. 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. Volatility, as measured through various intervals, ( Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly) is plotted according to color. 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. During 25 years, the Average Quarterly Volatility of NYT stock price has been 24% while the Average Daily Volatility has been 3%. |
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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 NYT : |
| Friday, February 18, 2011: We have news on Fiserv, Inc., ticker symbol FISV. Signs of an over-bought condition have become noticable. Also, there are breaking events concerning Zimmer Holdings, Inc. and D.R. Horton, Inc.. From the News Archive: (2/18/2011 ) Favorable events happened at Robert Half International Inc. and Southwestern Energy Company. Meanwhile, bad news came from McCormick & Company, Incorporated and Reynolds American, Inc.. |