Excerpt from MarketWatch quoting DataTrek’s Nick Colas:

…. “In a Tuesday note, DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas highlighted a volatility measure that starts with daily returns on the S&P 500 for any given year and adds them up, but turns the negative days into a positive sign.

The resulting total absolute daily return mimics what a day trader with 100% knowledge of the next day’s market direction could make by simply going long or short at the previous day’s close, Colas explained, while also offering a measure of what a buy-and-hold investor sees in terms of daily perceived stock market volatility (see chart below)”….

Read the full article here on MarketWatch!