No one can say you don't have choices here in Foolish Four Land. Our three basic strategies, the High Yield 10, the Foolish Four, and the RP Variation, all have their own variations. It can get confusing.
Standard deviation is one useful way to assess the riskiness of an investment.
I know, I know, standard deviation is a statistics term, but don't break out in hives. It's not that tough, and it is extremely useful when choosing among strategies. Bear in mind that the kind of risk we are talking about here is not the risk that you will lose everything in a catastrophic crash, but the risk that at some specific point, your money may not be at the level you expect. That's a very useful thing to look at, but it doesn't encompass every aspect of risk. In other words, the less volatile and risky the strategy.