Silver Volatility Jumps

The dramatic sell-off in the commodities markets that was kick started by last Wednesday's (9/21) FOMC meeting resulted in an equally dramatic increase in realized volatility, most notably in the precious metals. The greatest casualty of this liquidation was Silver, which saw a fall from $40 to a low of $26 in overnight trading early Monday, a decline in excess of 30% in a mere 3 days of trading.

The effect of this move on spot silver's realized volatility has been quite dramatic, jumping from a 30-day low of 29% to as high as 72% in 48 hours. Below is a volatility-over-time chart for the white metal:

The results above were calculated using The RiskAPI Add-In, our unique software client which allows fund managers to access a whole spectrum of on-demand portfolio risk analysis calculations.