This week saw probably the largest one day move in a major currency in the last 20 years.

YTD realized volatility for USDCHF was at 12.99% as of Monday, September 5th. On Tuesday, September 6th, due to the SNB's announcement that it would purchase "unlimited quantities" of non CHF currencies to keep it at 1.20 (number of Swiss Franc per 1 Euro) or lower, the Franc experienced a devaluation of almost 9%. Quoted in Francs (USDCHF), the currency rate moved from 0.7865 to 0.8568.

To appreciate the magnitude of this one-day event, using YTD data, a single standard deviation represented a move of 0.81% in the USDCHF exchange rate. Tuesday's event resulted in a shift of 8.9%, equivalent to roughly TEN TIMES this amount.

Critics of G-7 central banking policies will, no doubt, jump on such data as proof that the stated mission of "price stability" is proving to be out of reach lately.

Current YTD realized volatility for USDCHF as of September 8th stands at 16.51%

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.

Here are the current most volatile stocks in the S&P 500:

Volatility is defined as the annualized standard deviation of lognormal returns. This is equivalent to realized volatility as defined by option traders. Calculations are all YTD, as of Aug 18th, 2011.

All of the above were calculated using The RiskAPI Add-In.

The events in the equity markets in the last 10 days have been nothing less than extraordinary, to say the least.Here are some stats on the S&P 500 Index prior to July 28th:

• YTD Return: 6.43%
• YTD Realized volatility: 13.05%
• YTD Correlation to gold: 0.05

Here are the same stats with data since 7/28 included.

• YTD Return: -6.49%
• YTD Realized volatility: 19.67%
• YTD Correlation to gold: -0.18

Very significant market impacts have taken place here.

All of the above were calculated using The RiskAPI Add-In.