Beta is a measurement of market risk or volatility. That is, it indicates how much the price of a stock tends to fluctuate up and down compared to other stocks. Key Takeaways Beta indicates how volatile a stock's price is in comparison to the overall stock market.
What stocks have the highest 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 is a good beta for stock?
The company’s P/E ratio in the trailing 12-month period was 10.12, while its 5Y monthly beta was 0.93. In examining the 52-week price action we see that the stock hit a 52-week high of $66.97 and a 52-week low of $46.13. Over the past month, the stock ...
What is the formula for beta?
The debt to equity ratio can be calculated by dividing the present total liabilities of a company by shareholders’ equity.
How to calculate beta of a portfolio?
To determine the beta of an entire portfolio of stocks, you can follow these four steps:
- Add up the value (number of shares multiplied by the share price) of each stock you own and your entire portfolio.
- Based on these values, determine how much you have of each stock as a percentage of the overall portfolio.
- Multiply those percentage figures by the appropriate beta for each stock. ...
- Add up the weighted beta figures.
Is High beta good for a stock?
A stock that swings more than the market over time has a beta above 1.0. If a stock moves less than the market, the stock's beta is less than 1.0. High-beta stocks are supposed to be riskier but provide higher return potential; low-beta stocks pose less risk but also lower returns.
Is a beta of 0.5 good?
A beta greater than 1 indicates that the security's price tends to be more volatile than the market. A beta of less than 1 means it tends to be less volatile than the market. Many young technology companies that trade on the Nasdaq stocks have a beta greater than 1.
Is beta a good measure of risk?
The underlying reason that beta is ineffective as an indicator of risk, or the potential for long-term loss of capital, is that beta is simply a measure of share price volatility. The true risk associated with a company is a result of its business fundamentals.
Which stock has highest negative beta?
Negative Beta StocksCompanyCurrent PriceAverage VolumeSKYX SQL Technologies$2.16 +8.0%142,027YSG Yatsen$1.83 +18.1%8.25 millionDAWN Day One Biopharmaceuticals$19.95 +11.5%4.35 millionOG Onion Global$0.85 -3.4%2,49633 more rows
What is a good beta for a stock portfolio?
Beta is used as a proxy for a stock's riskiness or volatility relative to the broader market. A good beta will, therefore, rely on your risk tolerance and goals. If you wish to replicate the broader market in your portfolio, for instance via an index ETF, a beta of 1.0 would be ideal.
What does a beta of 0.8 mean?
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 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.
Is beta the same as volatility?
Implied volatility and beta both describe aspects of a stock's volatility. Implied volatility measures investor sentiment about the future performance of a stock, while beta compares a stock price's changes against the rest of the market to give perspective on the stock's performance.
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 Beta?
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 and for generating estimates of the expected returns of assets, considering both the risk of those assets and the cost of capital.
What does a negative beta mean in stocks?
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. There are also a few industry groups, like gold miners, where a negative beta is also common.
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 does R squared mean in stock?
R-squared is a statistical measure that shows the percentage of a security's historical price movements that can be explained by movements in the benchmark index. When using beta to determine the degree of systematic risk, a security with a high R-squared value, in relation to its benchmark, could indicate a more relevant benchmark.
What does beta mean in investing?
In investing, beta does not refer to fraternities, product testing, or old videocassettes. Beta is a measurement of market risk or volatility. That is, it indicates how much the price of a stock tends to fluctuate up and down compared to other stocks.
What does it mean when a stock has a beta of over 100?
If you see a beta of over 100 on a research site it is usually a statistical error or the stock has experienced a wild and probably fatal price swing. For the most part, stocks of established companies rarely have a beta higher than 4.
What Is the Beta?
The value of any stock index , such as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, moves up and down constantly. At the end of the trading day, we conclude that "the markets" were up or down. An investor considering buying a particular stock may want to know whether that stock moves up and down just as sharply as stocks in general. It may be inclined to hold its value on a bad day or get stuck in a rut when most stocks are rising.
Why should gold stocks have negative beta?
Some investors argue that gold and gold stocks should have negative betas because they tend to do better when the stock market declines.
Why is beta important?
Using beta to understand a security's volatility can help you choose the securities that meet your criteria for risk.
What does a beta of utility mean?
Many utility sector stocks have a beta of less than 1. Essentially, beta expresses the trade-off between minimizing risk and maximizing return. Say a company has a beta of 2. This means it is two times as volatile as the overall market. We expect the market overall to go up by 10%.
What is the beta of a young technology company?
Many young technology companies that trade on the Nasdaq stocks have a beta greater than 1. Many utility sector stocks have a beta of less than 1.
What does beta mean in Bloomberg?
When you look up a company’s beta on Bloomberg, the default number you see is levered, and it reflects the debt of that company. Since each company’s capital structure is different, an analyst will often want to look at how “risky” the assets of a company are regardless of the percentage of its debt or equity funding.
What are Equity Beta and Asset Beta?
Levered beta, also known as equity beta or stock beta, is the volatility of returns for a stock, taking into account the impact of the company’s leverage from its capital structure. It compares the volatility (risk) of a levered company to the risk of the market.
What is leverage beta?
Levered beta (equity beta) is a measurement that compares the volatility of returns of a company’s stock against those of the broader market. In other words, it is a measure of risk and it includes the impact of a company’s capital structure and leverage. 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.
How to find levered beta?
There are two ways to estimate the levered beta of a stock. The first, and simplest, way is to use the company’s historical β or just select the company’s beta from Bloomberg. The second, and more popular, way is to make a new estimate for β using public company comparables. To use the comparables approach, the β of comparable companies is taken from Bloomberg and the unlevered beta for each company is calculated.
Why is equity beta called equity beta?
It is also commonly referred to as “equity beta” because it is the volatility of an equity based on its capital structure. Capital Structure Capital structure refers to the amount of debt and/or equity employed by a firm to fund its operations and finance its assets. A firm's capital structure.
What is asset beta?
Unlevered Beta / Asset Beta Unlevered Beta (Asset Beta) is the volatility of returns for a business, without considering its financial leverage. It only takes into account its assets. , on the other hand, only shows the risk of an unlevered company relative to the market.
How to calculate the weekly return of a stock?
Follow these steps to calculate β in Excel: 1 Obtain the weekly prices of the stock 2 Obtain the weekly prices of the market index (i.e. S&P 500 Index) 3 Calculate the weekly returns of the stock 4 Calculate the weekly returns of the market index 5 Use the Slope function and select the weekly returns of the market and the stock, each as their own series 6 Congrats! The output from the Slope function is the β
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 Stock Beta Imply?
The sign (positive or negative) indicates the direction of the movement of the stock in question with respect to that of the underlying market or benchmark against which the stock’s movement is assessed.
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 of a stock is zero?
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.
How is beta calculated?
Stock’s Beta is calculated as the division of covariance of the stock’s returns and the benchmark’s returns by the variance of the benchmark’s returns over a predefined period.
What is the purpose of beta analysis?
It is one single statistical tool that investors frequently use to assess the risk that the stock may add to their portfolio, allowing them to gauge the risk in both qualitative and quantitative terms and to assess the risk and rewards associated with the stock. Using their analysis of Beta and their market acumen, the investors can take action regarding the stock.
What is a statistical tool?
It is one single statistical tool that investors frequently use to assess the risk that the stock may add to their portfolio, allowing them to gauge the risk in both qualitative and quantitative terms and to assess the risk and rewards associated with the stock.
What does beta mean in stock market?
Beta is represented as a number. Based on beta analysis, the overall stock markethas a beta of 1. And the beta of individual stocks determines how far they deviate from the broader market. A stock with a beta equal to 1 assumes its price moves hand-in-hand with the market.
What is beta in stock?
Beta can be a useful metric to determine how a stock’s price may move in relation to the overall market by examining its past performance. It can also be a useful indicator of risk, especially for investors who make trades frequently. However, beta has its limitations.
Why is beta high?
A stock with a high beta indicates it’s more volatile than the overall market and can react with dramatic share-price changes amid market swings. So if you don’t have the stomach for vast price changes, you may want to avoid investing in high-beta stocks.
What does it mean when a stock has a beta of less than 1?
If the stock has a beta less than 1, you can conclude that it’s less volatile than the overall market. This means that adding it to your portfolio may mitigate risk and may help in diversifying your investments.
What is beta in investing?
Nonetheless, beta can be one of many useful tools to have when evaluating your investments. So it’s important to at least calculate the beta of a stock you may be interested in purchasing. Before You Calculate Beta. Remember, beta measures how volatile a stock’s price may be in relation to a market benchmark. ...
What does it mean when a beta is below 1?
Betas can also dip below 1 into negative territory. This indicates that the stock may respond in the opposite direction of the overall market. Using the previous example, you could expect the stock’s price to go up if the S&P 500 goes down and vice versa.
How to find the beta of a stock?
Now, use a covariance formula to compare how the stock’s and index’s prices move in relation to each other. Divide this covariance result by the variance of only the index. This allows you to see how the stock and index prices moved in relation to one another, relative to how the index price moved on its own. Therefore, you get beta.
What is beta in stock market?
Definition: Beta is a numeric value that measures the fluctuations of a stock to changes in the overall stock market. Description: Beta measures the responsiveness of a stock's price to changes in the overall stock market.
What does a positive beta mean in stocks?
A positive beta value indicates that stocks generally move in the same direction with that of the market and the vice versa. Also see: volatility, CAPM, NSE Nifty, alpha. PREV DEFINITION.
What does 1.3 mean in stock?
For example, if a stock's beta value is 1.3, it means, theoretically this stock is 30% more volatile than the market . Beta calculation is done by regression analysis which shows security's response with that of the market.
What is bid ask spread?
The Bid-Ask Spread is one of the important trading points in the derivatives market and traders use it as an arbitrage tool to make little money by keeping a check on the ins and outs of Bid-Ask Spread.
What is the beta of a stock?
Often referred to as the beta coefficient, beta is an indication of the volatility of a stock, a fund, or a stock portfolio in comparison with the market as a whole. A benchmark index (most commonly the S&P 500) is used a as the proxy measurement for the market.
What is the purpose of beta?
Beta measures the relative volatility of an investment. It is an indication of its relative risk. Alpha and beta are standard calculations that are used to evaluate an investment portfolio’s returns, along with standard deviation, R-squared, and the Sharpe ratio .
What is the difference between utility and high tech stocks?
To investors, this signals that tech stocks offer the possibility of higher returns but generally pose more risks, while utility stocks are steady earners.
What are the two key measurements used to evaluate the performance of a stock, a fund, or an investment portfolio?
Alpha and beta are two of the key measurements used to evaluate the performance of a stock, a fund, or an investment portfolio.
What does a beta of 1 mean?
A beta of less than 1 means that the security is less volatile than the market , while a beta greater than 1 indicates that its price is more volatile than the market.
What does 1.0 mean in investing?
An alpha of 1.0 means the investment outperformed its benchmark index by 1%. An alpha of -1.0 means the investment underperformed its benchmark index by 1%. If the alpha is zero, its return matched the benchmark.
What does Alpha mean in stock?
Alpha shows how well (or badly) a stock has performed in comparison to a benchmark index.
What Is Beta?
For example, a stock’s risk is measured against a benchmark stock index, such as the S&P 500 Index in U.S. trading. It’s useful in determining a stock’s volatility relative to the benchmark, especially during bull and bear markets. For investors, looking at a stock’s beta can be key: generally, the higher the beta in a rising market, the higher the return. Conversely, in a bear market or correction, a higher beta could point to larger potential loss.
What does B mean in investing?
Beta (B) Beta (often used with the symbol B) is the statistical analysis that evaluates the volatility and risk of a particular investment portfolio. Beta is rooted in the volatility and movements of the market and how the investment responds.
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 t…
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.
Examples of Beta
Calculation
- Below is an Excel β calculator that you can download and use to calculate β on your own. β can easily be calculated in Excel using the Slope function. Follow these steps to calculate β in Excel: 1. Obtain the weekly prices of the stock 2. Obtain the weekly prices of the market index (i.e., S&P 500 Index) 3. Calculate the weekly returns of the stock 4. Calculate the weekly returns of the market i…
What Are Equity Beta and Asset Beta?
- Levered beta, also known as equity beta or stock beta, is the volatility of returns for a stock, taking into account the impact of the company’s leverage from its capital structure. It compares the volatility (risk) of a levered company to the risk of the market. Levered beta includes both business risk and the risk that comes from taking on debt. ...
Levered Beta vs Unlevered Beta
- Levered beta (equity beta) is a measurement that compares the volatility of returns of a company’s stock against those of the broader market. In other words, it is a measure of risk, and it includes the impact of a company’s capital structure and leverage. Equity beta allows investors to assess how sensitive a security might be to macro-market risks. For example, a company with a …
Calculation of Levered Beta
- There are two ways to estimate the levered beta of a stock. The first, and simplest, way is to use the company’s historical β or just select the company’s beta from Bloomberg. The second, and more popular, way is to make a new estimate for β using public company comparables. To use the comparables approach, the β of comparable companies is taken from Bloomberg and the un…
Interpreting Beta
- A security’s β should only be used when its high R-squared value is higher than the benchmark. The R-squared value measures the percentage of variation in the share price of a security that can be explained by movements in the benchmark index. For example, a gold ETF will show a low β and R-squared in relation to a benchmark equity index, as gold is negatively correlated with equit…
Related Readings
- Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to beta (β) of an investment security. To continue learning and advancing your career these additional resources will be helpful: 1. Types of Valuation Multiples 2. Analysis of Financial Statements 3. Leverage Ratios 4. Valuation Methods