Understanding the Four Measures of Volatility

Updated from 3/8/2007 at 2:15 p.m. EST

"Volatility" is a term that is increasingly interjected into financial market commentary by the press and professionals. In fact, Bloomberg Radio has a daily "Volatility Report." While the term is being thrown around with a seemingly high degree of expertise, I find that the concept is not well understood by most commentators and the average investor. This module of TheStreet University will cover the four main types of volatility measures:

• historical volatility;
• implied volatility;
• the volatility index; and
• intraday volatility.

Type 1: Historical Volatility ...