Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

Standard deviation measures how spread out numbers are from the mean. Variance calculates the average degree to which each number is different from the mean. Both metrics help assess volatility in ...

For instance, a player who often takes big risks for high rewards will likely experience high variance, with significant wins but also potentially large losses. "Despite his solid strategy, he hit a ...

Mary Hall is a editor for Investopedia's Advisor Insights, in addition to being the editor of several books and doctoral papers. Mary received her bachelor's in English from Kent State University with ...

If the expected return on two projects is the same but the second has a higher variance (or standard deviation), then the first will be preferred. Also, if the variance on the two projects is the same ...