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.

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 ...

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Standard deviation is a measurement of market volatility. Learn how investors use standard deviation in the MoneySense Glossary. This article is 1 year old. Some details may be outdated. Standard ...