Here are the current top 10 highest beta components of the S&P 500 index:

Note that this list is sorted by index component beta vs. the S&P 500. Associated component volatilities (annualized standard deviation) are posted as well. For comparison purposes, the current volatility of the S&P is 22.55%.

All calculations are as of 4/2/2011, executed on 1-year of adjusted daily data.

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.

An exciting part of this latest version of the RiskAPI Add-In is the addition of several new Market Macro keywords that enable instant portfolio stress testing. Click on the image below to view a quick demo of the stress test in action.

Click here to view the market macro stress test in action.

The system applies user-defined underlier price and implied volatility stresses and re-evaluates positions to determine individual and total P&L impacts. In addition, a very handy feature is the ability to select hypothetical index moves and see how these translate into potential moves in an equity, future, or option position. For example, users can input a hypothetical 3% drop in the S&P 500. The system will translate this into corresponding moves in each option underlier (or direct equity position) and then re-evaluate the entire portfolio based on these moves. The result is a P&L impact identifying whether the portfolio would lose money or not.

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.

One of the great features of the RiskAPI Add-In is the ability to quickly generate implied volatilities from standard option symbols. How quickly? As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words:

Here we took today's (February 16th) top 10 most active U.S. equity options by volume and generated implied volatilities based on their last closing market price. This particular method uses pre-set keywords via the Add-In's "Market Macro" mechanism. The symbols being used follow the OCC's standard option symbology coupled with a ".X" suffix, which identifies listed U.S. Equity options in the RiskAPI system.

The RiskAPI service is numerically solving for implied volatility for each option based on a configurable model for each option (black-scholes, tree-based, or closed-form approximation). Included is also a delta calculation for each option as well. Note that all calculations occur on the service-side, with Excel merely being used as the launch pad for requests.

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.