Ten years of yearly estimates: the mean moves far more than the volatility
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 2026-08-16, from When Equal Weight Beats Optimization.
| ticker | mean_estimate_range_pct | vol_estimate_range_pct |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | 184.7 | 28.6 |
| AAPL | 94.9 | 28.9 |
| MSFT | 76.2 | 29 |
| SPY | 44.9 | 26.7 |
| JNJ | 30.7 | 19 |
| KO | 23.9 | 25.4 |
- Rows × columns
- 6 × 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 | 6 distinct values (AAPL, JNJ, KO…) | |
mean_estimate_range_pct |
number | 23.9 to 184.7 | percent |
vol_estimate_range_pct |
number | 19 to 29 | 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 prices AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
date,
toFloat64(max(close)) AS c
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL', 'MSFT', 'NVDA', 'SPY', 'KO', 'JNJ')
AND date >= '2015-01-01'
AND date < '2025-01-01'
GROUP BY ticker, date
),
rets AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
date,
c / lagInFrame(c, 1) OVER (PARTITION BY ticker ORDER BY date ASC ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) - 1 AS ret
FROM prices
),
yearly AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
toYear(date) AS yr,
avg(ret) * 252 * 100 AS mean_pct,
stddevPop(ret) * sqrt(252) * 100 AS vol_pct
FROM rets
WHERE isFinite(ret)
GROUP BY ticker, yr
HAVING count() >= 200
)
SELECT
ticker,
round(max(mean_pct) - min(mean_pct), 1) AS mean_estimate_range_pct,
round(max(vol_pct) - min(vol_pct), 1) AS vol_estimate_range_pct
FROM yearly
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY mean_estimate_range_pct DESC
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