
Ever wondered how traders predict stock swings?
Image: Brendel, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Ever wondered how traders predict stock swings?
Imagine you're betting on a football game. You want to know if the team's performance will improve or decline over the next season.
Traders look at implied volatility to guess if stock prices will jump around more or less in the future, like predicting if a football team will be more unpredictable or steady next season.
Example
If a trader sees high implied volatility for a stock, it's like noticing the football team is expected to have a wild season with lots of ups and downs.
Remember this
High implied volatility suggests the market expects more dramatic price movements in the future.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Volatility smile
Implied volatility varies with strike price, contradicting Black-Scholes
Stock market
Why do stock prices sometimes soar beyond what numbers suggest?
Black–Scholes model
How can you predict the price of an option?
the Black-Scholes assumptions are
Why can’t we always predict stock prices perfectly?
Prediction market
Why does betting on the future cost more to place than to take?
Beta (finance)
Beta measures a stock's volatility relative to the market
Educational content, not financial advice.
Swipe through 100 ML concepts daily
Open Pocket Polymath