• QuickRead Top Story - Valuation/Appraisal

    Chasing the Elusive Butterfly of Volatility

    Accepting and Rejecting Data from Public Company Data Valuation analysts who, for whatever reason, eschew the publicly traded guideline company method but who would like to use option models for various aspects of the valuation assignment, face a conundrum. All option models require, as an input, a volatility factor in percentage format. Since the only place to derive such a volatility factor (usually defined as the standard deviation of total returns) is from public company data, how do you reject public company data on the one hand over here but use it on the other hand over there? Using non-public…