no nothing' about excel...got a mac and never used any of office software, neither it's compatible. can u compress it into a pdf or html format and make me an enourmous favor to send it to me? would really appreciate it.
By a few, I mean I have about 3 or 4 "steady" stocks that I trade daily and will add several more that are in play that particular day.
"get S&P data starting back in the Fifties and calculate a moving standard deviation for them" Bull. VIX measures implied volatility. It does NOT MEASURE VOLATILITY of the UNDERLYING (which is what you would get from above), it measures the IMPLIED volatility. IOW< the volatility encompassed within the premium/pricing strucutre of the OPTIONS on the underlying (the S&P100) Definition: "The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX is a popular measure of market risk. It is created with the implied volatilities of a variety of S&P 500 index options" The whole point of the VIX is that it does not merely measure the volatility in the underlying. this is CRITICAL to understand. it measured the IMPLIED volatility The CBOE did not have an option on the S&P 100 until 1983 so, again. there was no VIX 50 years ago, nor would measuring voltility in UNDERLYING tell you how people were pricing options related to the underlying. that is what implied volatility means.
i thot that was the case but there must have been a volatility tracker if not of the sp maybe of the dow.
Unfortunately, you don't know what you're talking about. You have access to implied volatilities for SPX options going back 50 years? 3 minutes work. VIX used to be derived from OEX options and using a different formula to today's VIX which is based on SPX options. VIX and VXO data going back to 1990 and 1986 respectively: http://www.cboe.com/micro/vix/historical.aspx
nice post, bite. the problem was the OP doesn't understand the diff between IMPLIED volatility and volatility.