HSBC·HSBC Holdings plc

Realized volatility (21d)

23.9% 67th pct

Below its peak

-12.0%

vs 200-day average

+2.1%

Up days (1y)

53%

HSBC Holdings plc is currently running 23.9% annualised volatility over the last 21 sessions. Measured against HSBC's own 13 years of daily returns rather than a market-wide average, that is the 67th percentile — a little above its own norm, against a typical reading of 20.5%. 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.

HSBC is trading -12.0% below its running peak. Across 12 full years on file, its median worst-drawdown-in-a-year was -24.4%, and the deepest was -54.0% 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 +2.1% from its 200-day moving average. Against every other day in its history, that gap ranks at the 49th percentile — close to the gap it normally carries. Over the past year HSBC closed higher on 53% of sessions, and it is currently 1 session into a falling streak.

On October specifically: over 14 years of records, HSBC finished the month higher 6 of 14 times, with a median return of -0.4% and an average of +0.1%. Its strongest month historically has been April at +4.2% on average, its weakest March at -4.4%. 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: HSBC has opened more than 2% away from the prior close in 195 of 3,268 sessions (6.0% of the time), with the largest gaps running +6.0% and -6.9%. 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 2026-10-14, split-adjusted, recomputed daily. Percentiles are against HSBC's own 13-year history, not a peer group or index.