Answers: The beta tells you how sensitive a stock is to the movements of a stock marketplace index.
Let's look at the Yahoo stock, which has a beta of 1.18 versus the S&P 500 index. Say the "market", i.e. the S&P index, moves up by 10%. A beta of 1.18 medium that Yahoo's stock is expected to move 1.18 times 10% or 11.8% on average. The same applies to the downside.
Microsoft's stock, on the other hand, have a beta of 0.87. So, when the "stock market" moves up by 10%, Microsoft is expected to move by 10% times 0.87 or 8.7%, i.e. less than the flea market.
To sum it up, a beta of more than 1 means that a stock is expected to hold larger moves than the stock index to which the beta refers. A beta of less than 1 money that a stock is expected to have smaller moves than the index. And a beta of 1 channel that the stock is expected to move as much as the index.
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http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/beta...
It is the ratio of returns of a stock (not the price of a stock) to the returns of the market index, usually the S&P 500. The returns are measured surrounded by months, usually over 3-5 years. But there is no standard time frame.
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