Annualized volatility vs total return, 25 large caps, calmest to wildest (~2 years)
Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-22, from The Low-Volatility Anomaly.
| ticker | annual_vol_pct | total_return_pct |
|---|---|---|
| SPY | 16.1 | 41.4 |
| KO | 17.7 | 44.6 |
| MCD | 18.8 | 6.8 |
| JNJ | 18.9 | 86.1 |
| PG | 19.1 | -13 |
| COST | 20.8 | 12.1 |
| PEP | 21.1 | -12.1 |
| MO | 22.8 | 44.6 |
| VZ | 23.5 | 24.1 |
| HD | 24 | -3.4 |
| XOM | 24.5 | 50.2 |
| WMT | 24.6 | 55.4 |
| JPM | 24.9 | 81.7 |
| HON | 25.3 | 3.6 |
| LMT | 26.7 | 23.1 |
| MRK | 29.1 | 18.5 |
| NFLX | 33.5 | 22.9 |
| CAT | 34.6 | 153.5 |
| LLY | 38.2 | 42.3 |
| TXN | 40.7 | 34.6 |
| UNH | 41.3 | -21.5 |
| NVDA | 47.2 | 66.5 |
| ORCL | 55.2 | 5 |
| TSLA | 61.1 | 99.4 |
| AMD | 62.2 | 195.6 |
- Rows × columns
- 25 × 3
- Computed
- Completeness
- No missing values
- Source
- US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
- Licence
- Strasmore terms · free, no signup
What each column holds
| Column | Type | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
ticker |
text | 25 distinct values (AMD, CAT, COST…) | |
annual_vol_pct |
number | 16.1 to 62.2 | percent |
total_return_pct |
number | -21.5 to 195.6 | percent |
Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.
the exact SQL behind every number
WITH d AS (
SELECT ticker,
toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS dt,
argMax(toFloat64(close), toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS c
FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
WHERE ticker IN ('SPY','KO','JNJ','PG','PEP','WMT','MCD','MO','VZ','XOM','JPM','HD','COST','UNH','MRK','LLY','HON','LMT','CAT','TXN','ORCL','NVDA','TSLA','AMD','NFLX')
AND window_start >= now() - INTERVAL 800 DAY
AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
+ toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
GROUP BY ticker, dt
),
r AS (
SELECT ticker, dt, c,
c / lagInFrame(c) OVER (PARTITION BY ticker ORDER BY dt) - 1 AS ret
FROM d
)
SELECT ticker,
round(stddevSamp(ret) * sqrt(252) * 100, 1) AS annual_vol_pct,
round((exp(sum(log(1 + ret))) - 1) * 100, 1) AS total_return_pct
FROM r
WHERE ret IS NOT NULL AND ret > -0.5 AND ret < 0.5
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY annual_vol_pct
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