Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Jan 23, 2021

Stock data type and beta calculation

Excel has a linked data type for stocks on the data tab. One of the fields available is called beta. there are many ways to calculate beta. Can you tell me how it is being calculated here? Thank you

Excel Beta.xlsx15 KB

excel

sedelstein

Copper Contributor

Jan 24, 2021

Thanks Joe

I think you are right about Morningstar. When you type a ticker symbol on their website you get some information on the risk tab. The data there is very close to but not exactly the same as what Excel returns. Five years is a pretty long time for a beta calculation and I think in the case of some symbols these measures are flawed and I prefer my own calculation which is also very easily calculated given historical stock data adjusted for dividends and corporate actions (splits, etc...)

Best regards

Steve

Riny_van_Eekelen

Platinum Contributor

Jan 24, 2021

sedelstein Far from being an expert on the subject, but perhaps it helps knowing that the Stock data type in Excel get's its data from a company called Refinitiv. See picture below. Did some testing and compared some betas from Excel to ones I found on e.g. Yahoo Finance (5Y). They match exactly.