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Standard deviation is a way of measuring the size of price moves, in order to try to help define whether the price will become more or less volatile in the future. It does not predict direction, but can aid in determining whether volatility in a price is likely to go up or down.
Standard deviation as an indicator has been added to the IG chart below. It can be seen that volatility for the S&P 500 rose dramatically during February, and then to a lesser degree in late March, from periods of relative calm in January and early March.
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