CNI·Canadian National Railway Company

Realized volatility (21d)

18.9% 46th pct

Below its peak

-13.0%

vs 200-day average

+4.4%

Up days (1y)

52%

Canadian National Railway Company is currently running 18.9% annualised volatility over the last 21 sessions. Measured against CNI's own 13 years of daily returns rather than a market-wide average, that is the 46th percentile — close to its own typical level, against a typical reading of 19.6%. The distinction matters because a number that looks calm for one stock is turbulent for another, and the absolute figure on its own tells you neither.

CNI is trading -13.0% below its running peak. Across 12 full years on file, its median worst-drawdown-in-a-year was -16.8%, and the deepest was -28.8% in 2020. The current pullback is therefore shallower than what this stock gives back in a typical year, which is context worth having before treating it as a dislocation.

Price sits +4.4% from its 200-day moving average. Against every other day in its history, that gap ranks at the 58th percentile — a somewhat wider gap than its own norm. Over the past year CNI closed higher on 52% of sessions, and it is currently 4 sessions into a rising streak.

On October specifically: over 13 years of records, CNI finished the month higher 7 of 13 times, with a median return of +1.4% and an average of +0.6%. Its strongest month historically has been July at +3.1% on average, its weakest December at -1.5%. Seasonality is a weak signal on its own — a decade is a small sample and regimes change — but it is a real distribution rather than a rule of thumb.

Overnight risk is measurable too: CNI has opened more than 2% away from the prior close in 80 of 3,268 sessions (2.4% of the time), with the largest gaps running +9.2% and -11.9%. For anyone holding through an event, that rate is a better guide to overnight exposure than the intraday range.

All figures computed from 3,269 daily closes between 2013-10-15 and 2026-10-13, split-adjusted, recomputed daily. Percentiles are against CNI's own 13-year history, not a peer group or index.