Excel and Normal Distribution

CFA Level I Quant
#1

Hello All,

I was trying to experiment some stuff (scaling issues and hypothesis testing) with normal distribution. While doing so, I found out that :

NORM.S.DIST(0, FALSE), which takes Z-value, returns prob. mass function (PMF) = 0.398942

When I use X= (Stand. Dev)*Z + Mean; for Mean = 12; SD = 2, X = 12 for Mean =12

But, =NORM.DIST(12,Mean = 2,SD = 2,FALSE), I get prob. mass function (PMF) = 0.19947114.

Essentially, norm.dist gives 1/2 the figure from norm.s.dist. How could this be possible? However, this doesn’t happen for cumulative distrib. function. I got the same value using both the functions. I am not sure why EXCEL is behaving erratically for calculating PMF?

Is this an error?

Can someone please help?

Thanks in advance.

#2

All,

I figured this out — the amplitude of the pdf will vary for different std. deviation. Just realized this.

Thanks