How to Interpret Standard Deviation. In the example above for Apple, the data show that the average return for the three-month period was 0.08 percent.

Example of Using Standard Deviation Suppose a mutual fund achieves the following annual rates of return over the course of five years: 4%, 6%, 8.5%, 2%, and 4%. The mean value, or average, is 4.9%.

For example, over the last 10 years, the S&P 500's average annual return was 11.21%, and it had an annual standard deviation of about 15.25%, according to Morningstar.

Standard deviation is the dispersion between two or more data sets. For example, if you were designing a new business logo and you presented four options to 110 customers, the standard deviation ...

To figure out the standard deviation, we have to take the square root of the variance, which is 11.43 (population variance) or 12.52 (sample variance). Explain Like I'm Five ...

An Industry Example of Pooled Standard Deviation. The manager of sales wanted to know the average sales of three offices as ...

To answer that, I found the standard deviation of 55 players—15 quarterbacks, and 20 of both running backs and wide receivers—each the best at their positions (according to ESPN's rankings).

For example, if Mutual Fund A has an average annual return of 10% and a standard deviation of 4%, you would expect about 68% of the time for the return to be between 6% and 14% ...

Issue Number Two: Hidden Risks. The second complaint about the standard-deviation calculation is that it overlooks hidden risks.This is certainly true; there are many real-life examples.