Standard Deviation across Columns

[anweinbe]

Hi All,

Is it possible to create a standard deviation across columns?

I had to calculate the Return on Assets for every firm-year in my table along with 4 years of lags. I then need to take the standard deviation of each of the 5 years worth of ROA's. The problem is they are all in columns next to each other. I was hoping to create a new column that showed the SD of the preceding 5 columns.

My data looks like this:

I need to figure out the SD for Microsoft 2018 using the 5 numbers next to it!

Microsoft - 2018 - 3.75 - 3.56 - 3.43 - 4.52 - 1.25

Microsoft - 2017 - 3.56 - 3.43 - 4.52 - 1.25 - 2.45

Thanks!

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Use the STD function. 

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl//en/lefunctionsref/69762/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p1fani7wj5...

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@anweinbe wrote:

Hi All,

Is it possible to create a standard deviation across columns?

I had to calculate the Return on Assets for every firm-year in my table along with 4 years of lags. I then need to take the standard deviation of each of the 5 years worth of ROA's. The problem is they are all in columns next to each other. I was hoping to create a new column that showed the SD of the preceding 5 columns.

My data looks like this:

I need to figure out the SD for Microsoft 2018 using the 5 numbers next to it!

Microsoft - 2018 - 3.75 - 3.56 - 3.43 - 4.52 - 1.25

Microsoft - 2017 - 3.56 - 3.43 - 4.52 - 1.25 - 2.45

Thanks!

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[anweinbe]

Ugh I can't believe what I did... I tried that but I put the STD() in the wrong place. I put it before each of the variables not thinking!

Thank you!!!