Reference:BETA COEFFICIENT FOR STOCKS

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BETA COEFFICIENT FOR STOCKS

The beta coefficient is a measurement of risk. It measures how much a given stock's price tends to change relative to a change in the market as a whole.

There are two kinds of betas; company betas and industry betas.

Company betas can usually be found in the following places:

Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage (S&P online database)

Value Line Investment Survey (CPMC Desk)

From the Yahoo Finance Page (http://finance.yahoo.com). After entering your ticker symbol, you'll need to click on the very small text for PROFILE and then scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Also the Bloomberg page provides the Beta for companies as part of its basic quote page at: http://www.bloomberg.com/

Historical betas

Standard & Poor's Stock Reports (3rd floor: HG4905 .S445)

Industry betas are harder because there is not general agreement delineating the boundaries between industries, so no one knows which companies to use in their computations. Industry betas can SOMETIMES be found in Standard & Poor's The Outlook (now available in [RRF-S&PNetAdvantage.html Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage] S&P online database), and in the Value Line Investment Survey at the CPMC Desk, but there are no guarantees.

Factiva database (available from http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/databases/databases.shtml#f): On the opening screen, after selecting the SEARCH Tab, click on the sub-selection for COMPANY QUICK SEARCH. You will be asked to enter the symbol or name of your company and then a page will be displayed on your company with numerous sections. Scroll down the page to the section labeled REPORTS and choose the COMPARISON REPORT OPTION. This will provide "comparative financial performances between this company and the primary Factiva industry group to which it belongs" and one of the items is the BETA coefficient.

See also Investment Risks

MP / PS

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