Investing in the stock market for the short term is a fool's errand. People should plan to stay with a stock investment a rock-bottom minimum of five years. But risk means nothing except in a comparative sense. And stocks and bonds are, at the very least, equally risky over the long term. As the variation in returns over time.
Standard deviation is a common way to measure volatility.
That's very scary in the short term. We wouldn't mortgage our houses to buy stocks. We believe it's important to balance a portfolio with bonds. Especially if you have a need for income or need to use the money within a few years, you should have money in bonds. We do not preclude the possibility that in the short term stocks could drop, and drop sharply.