You'll find the beta listed under "Stock Price History." The beta on Yahoo! compares the activity of the stock over the last five years to that of the S&P 500 Index. For example, as of Oct. 27, 2020, the beta for Microsoft (MSFT), as found on Yahoo!
What stocks have the highest beta?
Analysis On The 5 Highest-Beta Dividend Stocks
- NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)
- Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
- Fortinet, Inc. (FTNT)
- Albemarle Corporation (ALB)
- Align Technology (ALGN)
What do stocks have a high beta?
- Microsoft has a beta of around 1.25. This means an investor can reasonably expect that this stock is 25% more volatile than the market. ...
- Walt Disney Company has a beta right around 1.03. This puts its volatility right in line with the broader market. ...
- In contrast, Duke Energy has a beta of around 0.27. ...
What does beta stock mean?
The beta is the number that tells the investor how that stock acts compared to all other stocks, or at least in comparison to the stocks that comprise a relevant index. Beta measures a stock's volatility, the degree to which its price fluctuates in relation to the overall stock market.
Where can I find current and historical betas?
What's on this page?
- Calculating and interpreting Beta values
- Publications with Beta values
- Databases with Beta values
- Further sources

What beta is Good for a stock?
Key Takeaways. Beta is a concept that measures the expected move in a stock relative to movements in the overall market. A beta greater than 1.0 suggests that the stock is more volatile than the broader market, and a beta less than 1.0 indicates a stock with lower volatility.
What does a 1.5 beta mean?
A beta of 1.5 means that a stock's excess return is expected to move 1.5 times the market excess returns. E.g., if market excess return is 10%, then we expect, on average, the stock return to be 15%.
What does a beta of 1. 1 mean?
Each tenth of a point represents the percentage of volatility. For example, if a stock beta value is 1.1, then it is considered to have a 10 percent greater volatility than the market.
How do you find historical beta?
Beta could be calculated by first dividing the security's standard deviation of returns by the benchmark's standard deviation of returns. The resulting value is multiplied by the correlation of the security's returns and the benchmark's returns.
What if beta is less than 1?
A beta of less than 1 indicates that a stock's price is less volatile than the overall market. A beta of 1 indicates the stock moves identically to the overall market.
Do you want a high or low beta?
Stocks with a value greater than 1 are more volatile than the market (meaning they will generally go up more than the market goes up, and go down more than the market goes down). Stocks with a beta of less than 1 have a smoother ride as their moves are more muted than the market's.
What does a beta of 0.8 indicate?
If the stock is more volatile than the market, its beta will be more than 1, and if it is less volatile than the market, its beta will be less than 1. For example, a stock with a beta of 0.8 would be expected to return 80% as much as the overall market.
What is a good PE ratio?
So, what is a good PE ratio for a stock? A “good” P/E ratio isn't necessarily a high ratio or a low ratio on its own. The market average P/E ratio currently ranges from 20-25, so a higher PE above that could be considered bad, while a lower PE ratio could be considered better.
What is considered a high beta?
What are high-beta stocks? A high-beta stock, quite simply, is a stock that has been much more volatile than the index it's being measured against. A stock with a beta above 2 -- meaning that the stock will typically move twice as much as the market does -- is generally considered a high-beta stock.
Where can I find beta for stocks?
Published BetasOneSource. Search by Company Name or Ticker > Select "Ratio Comaprisons" > Valuation Ratios.Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage. Search by Company Name or Ticker > Select "Valuation" > Key Stock Statistics.Thomson One Banker. Search by Ticker > Key Fundamentals.Value Line Research Center. ... Yahoo!
Is historical or fundamental beta higher?
However, many studies have demonstrated that fundamental betas significantly outperform historical betas as predictors of future stock behavior.
What is a negative beta in stocks?
A negative beta describes an investment that tends to increase in price when the general market price falls and vice versa. Securities Lending is an example of an investment strategy which has a negative beta. This is because, as the returns available from the market fall, lending rates will generally rise.
How would you interpret a beta of 1.5 for an asset?
Equity beta allows investors to assess how sensitive a security might be to macro-market risks. For example, a company with a β of 1.5 denotes returns that are 150% as volatile as the market it is being compared to.
What does a beta of 1.6 mean?
For example, Johnson & Johnson has a beta of 0.7, meaning that it is less volatile than the overall market, while Amazon.com has a beta of 1.6, indicating that investors should expect higher volatility.
What is considered a high beta?
What are high-beta stocks? A high-beta stock, quite simply, is a stock that has been much more volatile than the index it's being measured against. A stock with a beta above 2 -- meaning that the stock will typically move twice as much as the market does -- is generally considered a high-beta stock.
What does a beta of 0.9 mean?
The higher a fund's beta, the more volatile it has been relative to its benchmark. A beta that is greater than 1.0 means that the fund is more volatile than the benchmark index. A beta of less than 1.0 means that the fund is less volatile than the index.
What is beta in stock market?
Stock Beta is one of the statistical tools that quantify the volatility in the prices of a security or stock with reference to the market as a whole or any other benchmark used for comparing the performance of the security. It is actually a component of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
What does it mean when the beta of a stock is negative?
The Stock Beta can have three types of values: Beta < 0: If the Beta is negative, then this implies an inverse relationship between the stock and the underlying market or the benchmark in comparison. Both stock and the market or the benchmark will move in the opposite direction. Beta = 0: If the Beta is equal to zero, ...
What does a beta of 1 mean?
Beta of 1 implies that the volatility of the stock is exactly the same as that of the underlying market or the index in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Beta of greater than 1 implies that the stock is more volatile than the underlying market or index. A negative Beta is possible but highly unlikely.
What does it mean when the beta is greater than zero?
Beta > 0: If the Beta is greater than zero, then there is a strong direct relationship between the stock and the underlying market or the benchmark. Both stock and the market or the benchmark will move in the same direction. Some further insight is as follows:
What does it mean when the beta is 0?
Beta = 0: If the Beta is equal to zero, then this implies that there is no relation between the movement of the returns of the stock and the market or the benchmark, and hence both are too dissimilar to have any common pattern in price movements . Beta > 0: If the Beta is greater than zero, then there is a strong direct relationship between ...
Is a negative beta of gold a good thing?
A negative Beta is possible but highly unlikely. Most investors believe that gold and stock based on gold tend to perform better when the market dives. Whereas a Beta of zero is possible in the case of government bonds acting as risk-free securities providing a low yield to the investors.
What is beta in stocks?
Beta is a measure of the volatility — or systematic risk — of a security or portfolio compared to the market as a whole. Beta is used in the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which describes the relationship between systematic risk and expected return for assets (usually stocks). CAPM is widely used as a method for pricing risky securities ...
What does it mean when a stock has a beta of less than 1.0?
Beta Value Less Than One. A beta value that is less than 1.0 means that the security is theoretically less volatile than the market. Including this stock in a portfolio makes it less risky than the same portfolio without the stock.
What is a beta of 1.0?
A stock with a beta of 1.0 has systematic risk. However, the beta calculation can’t detect any unsystematic risk. Adding a stock to a portfolio with a beta of 1.0 doesn’t add any risk to the portfolio, but it also doesn’t increase the likelihood that the portfolio will provide an excess return.
Why is beta important?
Beta is useful in determining a security's short-term risk, and for analyzing volatility to arrive at equity costs when using the CAPM. However, since beta is calculated using historical data points, it becomes less meaningful for investors looking to predict a stock's future movements.
How does beta work?
How Beta Works. A beta coefficient can measure the volatility of an individual stock compared to the systematic risk of the entire market. In statistical terms, beta represents the slope of the line through a regression of data points.
What is beta in capital asset pricing?
Beta, primarily used in the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), is a measure of the volatility–or systematic risk–of a security or portfolio compared to the market as a whole.
What does a negative beta mean?
Some stocks have negative betas. A beta of -1.0 means that the stock is inversely correlated to the market benchmark. This stock could be thought of as an opposite, mirror image of the benchmark’s trends. Put options and inverse ETFs are designed to have negative betas.
What is beta in stocks?
What Is Beta? Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility in relation to the overall market. By definition, the market, such as the S&P 500 Index, has a beta of 1.0, and individual stocks are ranked according to how much they deviate from the market.
What does beta mean in investing?
Of course, when investors consider risk, they are thinking about the chance that the stock they buy will decrease in value. The trouble is that beta, as a proxy for risk, doesn't distinguish between upside and downside price movements. For most investors, downside movements are a risk, while upside ones mean opportunity.
What is beta in CAPM?
Beta is a component of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which is used to calculate the cost of equity funding. The CAPM formula uses the total average market return and the beta value of the stock to determine the rate of return that shareholders might reasonably expect based on perceived investment risk.
Why is beta important?
To followers of CAPM, beta is useful. A stock's price variability is important to consider when assessing risk. If you think about risk as the possibility of a stock losing its value, beta has appeal as a proxy for risk. Intuitively, it makes plenty of sense.
Why does beta change over time?
A stock's beta will change over time because it compares the stock's return with the returns of the overall market. Benjamin Graham, the "father of value investing," and his modern advocates tried to spot well-run companies with a "margin of safety"—that is, an ability to withstand unpleasant surprises.
Why do analysts use beta?
Analysts use it often when they want to determine a stock's risk profile. However, while beta does say something about price risk, it has its limits for investors looking to determine fundamental risk factors.
What does value investor mean?
A value investor would argue that a company represents a lower-risk investment after it falls in value —investors can get the same stock at a lower price despite the rise in the stock's beta following its decline.
Why is beta important in stock?
But even then, a stock’s beta can provide a forecast of how volatile it will be in the future—and in turn, build a capital asset pricing model to determine potential reward. Because of its utility as an assessment of volatility, beta is a metric used in both fundamental analysis and technical analysis.
What is high beta stock?
High Beta Stocks. Beta is the result of a calculation that measures the relative volatility of a stock in correlation to a particular standard . For U.S. stocks that standard is usually, but not always, the S&P 500. Beta is a form of regression analysis and it can be useful for investors regardless of their risk tolerance.
What does a negative beta mean?
Beta of less than 0 (i.e. a negative beta): This means a stock is inversely correlated to the market. The tendency of the stock is to move in the opposite direction as the market. The higher the negative number, the more volatile the stock. As you can see, beta is all about its relationship to the number 1.
What is covariance in stock market?
Covariance helps measure how closely individual stocks move relative to the overall market or index. If the direction of their momentum, the beta will be positive. If their momentum is oppositional, the beta will be negative. Variance is a measure of the momentum of the stock market, relative to its mean.
What is a personally calculated beta?
A personally calculated beta, on the other hand, is one that investors will calculate for themselves. To calculate beta, investors will have to know the covariance between the return of the stock being analyzed and the return of the benchmark for that stock as well as the variance of the market returns.
What is smart beta?
A smart beta strategy can be used to minimize the risk impact of high beta stocks. This type of strategy might combine something passive and more stable, like a dividend investing strategy, with active trading in order to minimize losses from the most volatile stocks in the fund.
What is beta in fundamental analysis?
Beta is considered one of the few data points that can be beneficial for practitioners of fundamental analysis and technical analysis . Investors who tend to analyze stocks using fundamental analysis will use beta along with the price-to-earnings ratio, shareholders equity, debt-to-equity ratio, and other factors.

What Is Beta?
Calculating Beta
- Beta is calculated using regression analysis. Numerically, it represents the tendency for a security's returns to respond to swings in the market. The formula for calculating beta is the covariance of the return of an asset with the return of the benchmarkdivided by the variance of the return of the benchmark over a certain period. Beta=CovarianceVariance\text{Beta} = \frac{\text…
The Advantages of Beta
- To followers of CAPM, beta is useful. A stock's price variability is important to consider when assessing risk. If you think about risk as the possibility of a stock losing its value, beta has appeal as a proxy for risk. Intuitively, it makes plenty of sense. Think of an early-stage technology stock with a price that bounces up and down more than the market. It's hard not to think that stock wil…
The Disadvantages of Beta
- If you are investing based on a stock's fundamentals, beta has plenty of shortcomings. For starters, beta doesn't incorporate new information. Consider a utility company: let's call it Company X. Company X has been considered a defensive stockwith a low beta. When it entered the merchant energy business and assumed more debt, X's historic beta no longer captured the …
Assessing Risk
- The well-worn definition of risk is the possibility of suffering a loss. Of course, when investors consider risk, they are thinking about the chance that the stock they buy will decrease in value. The trouble is that beta, as a proxy for risk, doesn't distinguish between upside and downsideprice movements. For most investors, downside movements are a risk, while upside ones mean oppor…
The Bottom Line
- Ultimately, it's important for investors to make the distinction between short-term risk—where beta and price volatility are useful—and longer-term, fundamental risk, where big-picture risk factors are more telling. High betas may mean price volatility over the near term, but they don't always rule out long-term opportunities.