According to Wikipedia, Karl Pearson, Fellow of the Royal Society, established the discipline of mathematical statistics. Karl Pearson first used the term "Standard Deviation" in writing in 1894 following its use in his lectures. Standard Deviation is very important in financial matters. The standard deviation on the rate of return of an investment is a measure of the volatility of the investment.
To begin with, a large standard deviation indicates that the data points are considerably from the mean and a modest standard deviation indicates that the data points are clustered a lot nearer to the mean. Considering your investments, standard deviation serves as a measure of uncertainty. The reported standard deviation of a group of repeated measurements should give the precision of individual measurements.
When deciding whether measurements agree with a theoretical prediction the standard deviation of those measurements is of critical importance. There is practical value to be gained when online investing by understanding the standard deviation of a set of values and in appreciating how much variation there is from the average (mean) of stocks, options or the market indices.
In addition, Standard Deviation gives a very good representation of the danger associated with an offered security such as a stock, option or even a portfolio of securities. To effectively manage your investment portfolio, it requires a great handle on the associated risks. Risk is such an important factor because it determines the variations on the returns of the portfolio and gives investors a mathematical foundation for investment choices regarded as mean-variance optimization. Since risk will increase, the anticipated return on your portfolio will increase and the uncertainty of the return will also boost. Standard Deviation offers a quantified approximation of the uncertainty of your long-term returns.
Great trading strategies are enhanced by standard deviation and online investing with options make it even more critical that traders understand and use tools such as standard deviation and Bollinger Bands. Stock options include risks that are not appropriate to all traders making these concepts even more dynamic.
For example, if we are looking for a stock to write a covered call on we will look for a stock with a low standard deviation history. If we are looking to buy puts then we will seek a stock with a high standard deviation. The larger the variance in standard deviation, the larger the risk the security will have. Many technical analysts prefer to use an analysis tool called "Bollinger Bands" which were invented by John Bollinger. This tool is used to measure the highness and lowness of price relative to previous trades in the industry.
Bollinger Bands consist of a middle band being an N-period (usually the simple moving average), an upper band at K times an N-period standard deviation above the middle band, and a lower band at K times an N-period standard deviation below the middle band, where N and K are usually 20 and 2 respectively.The use of these Bollinger Bands are very helpful in recognizing patterns and comparing price actions of stocks and therefore are very useful for making systematic trading decisions. When used with other tools and data, Bollinger Bands are a very effective management tool that has a practical use of standard deviation and its use in making decisions for your online investing.
Wall street considers standard deviation a common concept that all traders need to use regularly. If you are a beginning investor then please consider starting with a complete understanding of these and other investment tools and concepts.
In order that an investor be on the safe side of trading, let's assume that all investors are at a loss for education when it comes to both stocks and options. Therefore, we recommend a simple preventive measure by any investor that wants to be successful with online investing. That measure is to start your trading with FREE VIRTUAL STOCK TRADING avoid losing any money at all until you are comfortable with your experience level.
Good Luck with your Online Investing!
To begin with, a large standard deviation indicates that the data points are considerably from the mean and a modest standard deviation indicates that the data points are clustered a lot nearer to the mean. Considering your investments, standard deviation serves as a measure of uncertainty. The reported standard deviation of a group of repeated measurements should give the precision of individual measurements.
When deciding whether measurements agree with a theoretical prediction the standard deviation of those measurements is of critical importance. There is practical value to be gained when online investing by understanding the standard deviation of a set of values and in appreciating how much variation there is from the average (mean) of stocks, options or the market indices.
In addition, Standard Deviation gives a very good representation of the danger associated with an offered security such as a stock, option or even a portfolio of securities. To effectively manage your investment portfolio, it requires a great handle on the associated risks. Risk is such an important factor because it determines the variations on the returns of the portfolio and gives investors a mathematical foundation for investment choices regarded as mean-variance optimization. Since risk will increase, the anticipated return on your portfolio will increase and the uncertainty of the return will also boost. Standard Deviation offers a quantified approximation of the uncertainty of your long-term returns.
Great trading strategies are enhanced by standard deviation and online investing with options make it even more critical that traders understand and use tools such as standard deviation and Bollinger Bands. Stock options include risks that are not appropriate to all traders making these concepts even more dynamic.
For example, if we are looking for a stock to write a covered call on we will look for a stock with a low standard deviation history. If we are looking to buy puts then we will seek a stock with a high standard deviation. The larger the variance in standard deviation, the larger the risk the security will have. Many technical analysts prefer to use an analysis tool called "Bollinger Bands" which were invented by John Bollinger. This tool is used to measure the highness and lowness of price relative to previous trades in the industry.
Bollinger Bands consist of a middle band being an N-period (usually the simple moving average), an upper band at K times an N-period standard deviation above the middle band, and a lower band at K times an N-period standard deviation below the middle band, where N and K are usually 20 and 2 respectively.The use of these Bollinger Bands are very helpful in recognizing patterns and comparing price actions of stocks and therefore are very useful for making systematic trading decisions. When used with other tools and data, Bollinger Bands are a very effective management tool that has a practical use of standard deviation and its use in making decisions for your online investing.
Wall street considers standard deviation a common concept that all traders need to use regularly. If you are a beginning investor then please consider starting with a complete understanding of these and other investment tools and concepts.
In order that an investor be on the safe side of trading, let's assume that all investors are at a loss for education when it comes to both stocks and options. Therefore, we recommend a simple preventive measure by any investor that wants to be successful with online investing. That measure is to start your trading with FREE VIRTUAL STOCK TRADING avoid losing any money at all until you are comfortable with your experience level.
Good Luck with your Online Investing!
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