Twenty Stocks With Consistently Low Price Volatility July 2018

Regular readers may be aware that I have been evaluating the Nifty Low Volatility Indices quite often in the recent past. Here are twenty stocks from the Nifty 100 with consistently low price volatility over the last three years.

There are two NSE low volatility indices: (1) 50 NSE stocks that have the lowest price volatility form the Nifty Low Volatility 50. (2) 30 stocks that have the lowest price volatility among the Nifty 100* form the Nifty 100 Low Volatility 30. * Nifty 100 or N100 is a list of 100 stocks with highest market capitalization on the NSE.

For this study, I have considered the current list of 100 stocks from N100 and evaluated daily returns over three periods:

A: July 3rd 2017 to July 3rd 2018

B: July 2nd 2016 to July 2nd 2017

C: July 1st 2015 to July July 2106.

The standard deviation of the daily returns is then calculated. This tells us how much each return varies from the mean. This is a measure of volatility. Higher the standard deviation, the higher the price will move up and down. Our aim is to hunt for stocks with the least volatility. Why? Because it works! That is why. See: Picking Stocks With Low Volatility: A simple, but effective strategy?

Two of the five test stocks portfolios are based on low volatility: Lazy Investing: Five Test Stock Portfolios -July 2018 Update

So after computing the volatility (standard deviation) for period A above, I sorted it in terms of increasing volatility and listed the top 30 stocks. Then I compared the list with current stocks in the Nifty 100 Low Volatility 30. Only 7 stocks were different in the two lists. This is pretty good considering I do not know the period NSE has used for calculation.

So here are the Twenty Stocks With Consistently Low Price Volatility

Even I know that this is a decent shortlist to start digging further. Of course these many are expensive stocks. So what? Good quality comes at a price!

Please note that low volatility does not mean that the price has gone up in the periods considered. The price could not have moved much or gone south too. Low volatility could mean one or more of the following: the trading volumes are steady and do not fluctuate much. There has not been any market-wide dip in the periods calculated. The companies have neither had good news or bad news. Or they have had only good news or only bad news.

My point is, consistently low volatility does not make a stock an automatic “good buy”. It only means it is worth looking further. So please view this list as an information and do your research before committing money.

Download the full list for all three periods

To analyze the stocks further use these sheets:

Automated Earnings Power Stock Analysis With Screener.in data

Automated Stock Analysis with the Earnings Power Box (MorningStar financials)

To get the stock price history, use the stock code mentioned in the “full list” sheet and plug into the analyzer sheet. The stock prices used in this article were obtained from Moneycontrol. They are adjusted for splits but not for dividends.