Discover the differences between standard deviation and variance, two essential metrics for investors to assess volatility and risk in financial data.

Andrew Bloomenthal has 20+ years of editorial experience as a financial journalist and as a financial services marketing writer. Eric's career includes extensive work in both public and corporate ...

An asset's standard deviation tells you how much its returns vary from its average. You can quickly calculate or look up the standard deviation of different assets. A high standard deviation can ...

In response to my article, Is the Stock Market Too Concentrated?, which relied upon standard-deviation calculations to assess investment risk, a reader wrote: “My problem [with your argument] is ...