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 Southwest Bell Communications, defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: So, to derive the Daily Volatility on 11/30/2005 of 2.1%, the price range for the day (0.55) was divided by the average price (25.07). Daily Volatility (the daily range as a portion of the daily average price) is plotted in green. Blue is Weekly Volatility, which is the weekly range as a portion of the weekly average price. This is a different concept from the weekly average of daily volatility. The red plot shows the actual price. 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 SBC has been 2% in contrast to the Average Quarterly Volatility of 19%. |
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If you have ever seen a "yield curve" you should be able to understand the concept behind this "yield curve". 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 SBC 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 SBC : |
| Monday, February 08, 2010: We have news on American International Group, Inc., ticker symbol AIG. Some signs of an over-sold condition have become evident. Also, there are breaking events concerning Nicor Inc. and Archer-Daniels-Midland. From the News Archive: (2/5/2010 ) Favorable events happened at Regions Financial Corporation, Marathon Oil Corporation, and Pactiv Corporation. Meanwhile, bad news came from Genzyme Corporation. |