Terms

Plain meanings for the words on this desk. The formulas are under How the math works.

Volatility (Vol): How bumpy the ride was. A higher number means bigger swings, both up and down. Bumpy is not the same thing as bad. A rough ride can still finish higher.
Variance: Volatility squared. On the Risk page, a calm name can hold a lot of the money and still cause little of the variance. A wild name does the opposite.
Sharpe ratio: Return above the risk-free rate, divided by volatility. It asks how much extra return you got for each bit of bumpiness. Higher is better in this window. If the mix earned less than cash, the Sharpe ratio is negative.
Drawdown (Max DD): How far the value fell from a peak before it recovered. Max DD is the deepest of those falls. A −20% drawdown means it was once down a fifth from a high, even if it later climbed back.
Risk-free rate: What very short-term Treasury bills paid, treated as cash with almost no bumpiness. Sharpe compares every mix with this. You can type a different rate on the Portfolio page.
Correlation: Whether two investments moved together. Near 100% means they rose and fell together. Near 0% means they often moved on their own. A negative number means one often rose while the other fell.
Weight: The share of the portfolio in one name. The shares always add up to 100%. This desk does not sell short, so no weight goes below zero.
Equal weight: The same amount of money in every name. It is a plain comparison, not an optimized mix.
Efficient frontier: The curve of mixes where you could not have gotten a smoother ride without giving up return. Mixes under the curve were worse deals in this window.