Skip to main content

Standard Deviation – Measuring Mutual Fund Volatility and Risk

Invest In Tax Saving Mutual Funds Online

Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)

 

 

Standard Deviation is the most common statistical measure of judging a fund's volatility and risk. A primer on this useful tool...

 

The core of fund analysis activity lies in the twin pursuit of judging returns and risk. Stripped off a lot of the complexity, this task involves determining a fund's average performance over a period of time. Let's get down to basics and take a refresher course on this concept.

 

Why do we use an average? Why don't we use the actual numbers that the average is calculated from? Obviously, because an average gives us a single value that represents the numbers it is calculated from. It is far easier to use a single number for judgement and comparisons.

 

But like most things in life, averages can be both good and bad. They can be trustworthy, or they can be worthless, or they can be anywhere between the two. For example, the average age of children in a kindergarten is three years. You could walk into a kindergarten expecting most kids to be more-or-less three years old and you would not be wrong. However, the average age of students in a school is 12 years. You could walk into a school expecting most students to be more-or-less 12 years old and you would be almost completely wrong. Around 90 per cent of the students would NOT be 12 years old -- they would be all ages from 5 to 18 years.

 

What happened? Was the average wrong? Obviously not, but it was not a very useful figure. It would have been far more useful if you had been told that most of the individual ages in the kindergarten were close to the average but most of the individual ages in the school were far from the average.

 

This is exactly what Standard Deviation does. It gives you a 'quality rating' of an average. The Standard Deviation of an average is the amount by which the numbers that go into an average deviate from that average. It tells us how closely an average represents the underlying numbers. Let's put it this way: There was very little risk in assuming that the kindergarten's average represented the real ages but there was a great deal of risk in assuming that the school's average represented the real ages.

Risk! Isn't that what we are trying to figure out? So a recipe for figuring out the risk level of a fund takes shape:


1. Calculate a fund's monthly performance over a long period of time.
2. Calculate the average for all these monthly performances.
3. If the individual monthly performances are very different from the average, then that fund is risky, delivering high returns in some months and poor returns in others. If they are mostly similar, then the fund is a low risk one, with about the same returns month after month.

 

And how do we find out if mutual funds are 'very different' or 'mostly similar'? By calculating their average, of course. We just calculate exactly how much each month's performance is different from the average and then calculate the average of these differences. This is Standard Deviation. (While the actual formula is complex, this suffices as a simplified explanation.)

 

But you do need to be careful of one thing -- a high Standard Deviation may be a measure of volatility, but it does not necessarily mean that such a fund is worse than one with a low Standard Deviation. If the first fund is a much higher performer than the second one, the deviation will not matter much.

Happy Investing!!

We can help. Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)

Leave your comment with mail ID and we will answer them

OR

You can write back to us at PrajnaCapital [at] Gmail [dot] Com

---------------------------------------------

Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds ( ELSS Mutual Funds ) to upto Rs 1 lakh and Save tax under Section 80C.

Invest Tax Saving Mutual Funds Online

Tax Saving Mutual Funds Online

These links can be used to Purchase Mutual Funds Online that are regular also (Investment, non-tax saving)

Download Tax Saving Mutual Fund Application Forms from all AMCs

Download Tax Saving Mutual Fund Applications

These Application Forms can be used for buying regular mutual funds also

Some of the best Tax Saving Mutual Funds available ( ELSS Mutual Funds )

  1. ICICI Prudential Tax Plan Invest Online
  2. HDFC TaxSaver Invest Online
  3. DSP BlackRock Tax Saver Fund Invest Online
  4. Reliance Tax Saver (ELSS) Fund Invest Online
  5. Birla Sun Life Tax Relief '96 Invest Online
  6. IDFC Tax Advantage (ELSS) Fund Invest Online
  7. SBI Magnum Tax Gain Scheme 1993 Invest Online
  8. Sundaram Tax Saver Invest Online
  9. Edelweiss ELSS Invest Online

------------------

Best Performing Mutual Funds

    1. Largecap Funds Invest Online
      1. DSP BlackRock Top 100 Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Focused Blue Chip Fund
      3. Birla Sun Life Front Line Equity Fund
    2. Large and Midcap Funds Invest Online
      1. ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan
      2. HDFC Top 200 Fund
      3. UTI Dividend Yield Fund
    1. Mid and SmallCap Funds Invest Online
      1. Reliance Equity Opportunities Fund
      2. DSP BlackRock Small & Midcap Fund
      3. Sundaram Select Midcap
      4. IDFC Premier Equity Fund
    1. Small and MicroCap Funds Invest Online
      1. DSP BlackRock MicroCap Fund
    1. Sector Funds Invest Online
      1. Reliance Banking Fund
      2. Reliance Banking Fund
    1. Tax Saver MutualFunds Invest Online
      1. ICICI Prudential Tax Plan
      2. HDFC Taxsaver
      3. DSP BlackRock Tax Saver Fund
      4. Reliance Tax Saver (ELSS) Fund
    2. Gold Mutual Funds Invest Online
      1. Relaince Gold Savings Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Regular Gold Savings Fund
      3. HDFC Gold Fund

Popular posts from this blog

Birla SunLife Manufacturing Equity Fund

The Make in India program was launched by Prime Minister Naredra Modi in September 2014 as part of a wider set of nation-building initiatives. It was devised to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. The primary motive of the campaign is to encourage multinational as well domestic companies to manufacture their products in India. This would create more job opportunities, bring high-quality standards and attract capital along with technological investment to bring more foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country.   Why India as the next manufacturing destination?   The rising demand in India along with the multinational's desire to diversify their production to include low-cost plants in countries other than China, can help India's manufacturing sector to grow and create millions of jobs. In the words of our Honourable Prime Minister- Mr. Narendra Modi, India offers the 3 'Ds' for business to thrive— democracy,...
Read more

Kisan Vikas Patra - KVP

  Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) First launched in 1988, the Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) is one of the premier and popular saving scheme offering from the Indian Postal Department. This product has had a very chequered history- initially successful, deemed a product that could be misused and thus terminated in 2011, followed by a triumphant return to prominence and popular consumption in 2014. The salient features of KVP are as follows- The grand USP- Money invested by the applicant doubles in 100 months (8 years, 4 months). KVPs are available in the following denominations- Rs.1000, Rs.5000, Rs.10,000 and Rs.50,000. The minimum purchase value for the KVP is Rs.1000. There is no maximum limit. KVPs are available at all departmental post offices across India. These certificates can be prematurely encashed after 2 ½ years from the point of issue. KVPs can be transferred from one individual to another and from one post office to another. ----------------------------------------------------- Inve...
Read more

Mutual Fund Review: Reliance Regular Savings Equity

    Despite high churn, Reliance Regular Savings Equity has managed to fetch good returns   In its short history, this one has made its mark. Though its annual and trailing returns are amazing, the fund started off on a lousy note (last two quarters of 2005). It managed to impress in 2006 and was turning out to be pretty average in 2007, till Omprakash Kuckian took over in November 2007 and wasted no time in changing the complexion of the portfolio. Exposure to Construction shot up to 28 per cent with almost 21 per cent cornered by Pratibha Industries and Madhucon Projects . Exposure to Engineering was yanked up (18.50%) while Financial Services lost its prime slot (dropped to 6.69%) and Auto was dumped. That quarter (December 2007), he delivered 54.66 per cent (category average: 25.70%).   When the market collapsed in 2008, thankfully the fund did not plummet abysmally. But even its high cash allocations could not cushion the fall which hovered around the category average. ...
Read more

Mutual Fund Review: HDFC Index Sensex Plus

  In terms of size, HDFC Index Sensex Plus may be one of the smallest offerings from the HDFC stable. But that has not dampened its show, which has beaten the Sensex by a mile in overall returns   HDFC Index Sensex Plus is a passively managed diversified equity scheme with Sensex as its benchmark index. The fund also invests a small proportion of its equity portfolio in non-Sensex scrips. The scheme cannot boast of an impressive size and is one of the smallest in the HDFC basket with assets under management (AUM) of less than 60 crore. PERFORMANCE: Being passively managed and portfolio aligned to that of the benchmark, the performance of the index fund is expected to follow that of the benchmark and in this respect, it has not disappointed investors. Since its launch in July 2002, the fund has outperformed Sensex in overall returns by good margins.    While every 1,000 invested in HDFC Index Sensex Plus in July 2002 is worth 6,130 now, a similar amount invested in Sensex then wo...
Read more

How to generate a UAN Online

Best SIP Funds Online   In order to make Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) accounts portable, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had launched the facility of Universal Account Number (UAN ) in 2014. Having a UAN is now mandatory if you have an EPF account and are contributing to it. So far, you got this number from your employer and every time you changed jobs, you had to furnish this number to the new employer.  However, in order to make it easier for you to get a UAN , and without your employer's intervention, the EPFO now allows you to go online and generate a UAN on your own. This facility can be used by freshers, or new employees, who are joining the workforce as well as by employees who have older EPF accounts but do not have a UAN as yet. As a new employee, you can simply generate a UAN and provide the number to your employer at the time of joining, when you need to fill up forms for your EPF contribution. As per a circula...
Read more
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds Download Any Applications
Transact Mutual Funds Online Invest Online
Buy Gold Mutual Funds Invest Now