Brad Hessel

The Inverse Relationship Between Performance and Volatility

Common Cents: your secular-increase-in-vo... theory sounds plausible, but all the votes aren't in yet. The S&P 500 index only dates back to 1957 (tho Yahoo! lists derived results dating back to 1950), so the data set is limited. I am working with DJIA data now, and comparable measures of volatility in the 1930s appear to show levels significantly in excess of 2008. Stay tuned.