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This chart shows Volatility for Exxon Mobil, defined to be the price range as a portion of the average price: For instance, on 7/1/2009 the average price was 70.96 with a range of 1.10, indicating a Daily Volatility of 1.5%. 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. 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 29 years, the Average Quarterly Volatility of XOM stock price has been 15% while the Average Daily Volatility has been 2%. |
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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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A frequency distribution of the green points on the first chart (the daily volatility) yields this histogram. |
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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 XOM : |
| Wednesday, July 01, 2009: We have news on Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., ticker symbol PEG. Signs of an over-bought condition have become noticable. Also, there are breaking events concerning The Travelers Companies, Inc. and Kellogg Company. From the News Archive: (7/1/2009 ) Favorable events happened at Allegheny Energy, Inc., Bank of America Corporation, and American International Group, Inc.. Meanwhile, bad news came from Lexmark International, Inc.. |