Standard deviation is a metric that shows the variability of a security’s returns over time. It can be used to gauge volatility based on past performance and compare a future return to past returns.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Learn about downside deviation, a crucial metric for assessing downside risk by focusing on returns below a minimum threshold, and how it influences investment strategies.

Somewhere back in your middle school and high school math classes, you no doubt learned about the mean and standard deviation as fairly fundamental concepts in arithmetic and statistics. You also knew ...

In statistics, the average amount a number varies from the average number in a series of numbers. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction requires permission.