Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

Investopedia contributors come from a range of backgrounds, and over 25 years there have been thousands of expert writers and editors who have contributed. Robert Kelly is managing director of XTS ...

Financial variance is the difference between budgeted and actual spending. Positive variance means spending less, negative indicates overspending. Regular monitoring reduces surprises and improves ...

If the expected return on two projects is the same but the second has a higher variance (or standard deviation), then the first will be preferred. Also, if the variance on the two projects is the same ...

When manufacturing products, a business should budget the time and necessary manpower to produce the products. This allows the company to estimate the total costs associated with the production of the ...

The clinical application of the B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) assay is well established and characterized by excellent sensitivity (acceptably low false negative rate) but less than adequate ...