"JELLO" wrote:
i have a set of financial data that i would like to use to find
its historical volatility. I know the equation for determining
volatility but i was wondering if there is an excel addin that
would speed up the process so i dont have to do everything
manually

I would be very interested in learning your definition of historical
volatility and the equation that you use. I wonder if there is more
than one definition.

My definition is the standard deviation of the price changes. The
following is the "template" that I use to compute historical volatility.
Consider a history of 100 price points.

A1: price1
A2: price2
..... 'etc through A100
B2: A2/A1 - 1 'percentage change
C2: LN(A2/A1) 'log return
..... 'copy B2:C2 down through B100:C100
C101: EXP(AVERAGE(C2:C100)) - 1
C102: EXP(STDEV(C2:C100)) - 1
C103: EXP(STDEV(C2:C100)/SQRT(COUNT(C2:C100))) - 1

C101 is the average return; it can also be computed using
=(A100/A2)^(1/COUNT(A2:A100)) - 1. C102 is the standard
deviation, the definition of volatility that I use. C103 is the
standard error of the average, which is useful for determining
a confidence interval around the average.

Does that help?