Although the normal distribution is an extremely important statistical concept, its applications in finance can be limited because financial phenomena—such as expected stock-market returns—do not fall neatly within a normal distribution. In fact, prices tend to follow more of a log-normal distribution that is right-skewed and with fatter tails. Therefore, relying too heavily on a bell curve when making predictions about these events can lead to unreliable results. Although most analysts are well aware of this limitation, it is relatively difficult to overcome this shortcoming because it is often unclear which statistical distribution to use as an alternative.