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Foundational Properties of Market Volatility for Strategy Development

Foundational Properties of Market Volatility for Strategy Development


Historical Volatility Review
Historical volatility is basically just a measure of how much prices (or a measure of anything) fluctuates over a period of time. It is a measure of past volatility; and volatility means "movement" in this context. Properties of volatility can be foundational in the construction of trading strategies.

Important Properties of Volatility
  • Historical volatility is more cyclical than price; it tends to move in cycles rather than being random or constant over time. Cycles in this context is often interchangeable with the other concept of "market regimes", ie. "high volatility regime" is a period of sustained volatility.
  • Realized volatility is highly autocorrelated. This means that high volatility generally sees continued volatility in the periods immediately following before dissipating.