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How Does Viavi Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAV) Affect Your Portfolio Volatility?

If you're interested in Viavi Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAV), then you might want to consider its beta (a measure of share price volatility) in order to understand how the stock could impact your portfolio. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. The first type is company specific volatility. Investors use diversification across uncorrelated stocks to reduce this kind of price volatility across the portfolio. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market.

Some stocks see their prices move in concert with the market. Others tend towards stronger, gentler or unrelated price movements. Beta is a widely used metric to measure a stock's exposure to market risk (volatility). Before we go on, it's worth noting that Warren Buffett pointed out in his 2014 letter to shareholders that 'volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' Having said that, beta can still be rather useful. The first thing to understand about beta is that the beta of the overall market is one. A stock with a beta greater than one is more sensitive to broader market movements than a stock with a beta of less than one.

Check out our latest analysis for Viavi Solutions

What VIAV's beta value tells investors

Looking at the last five years, Viavi Solutions has a beta of 1.39. The fact that this is well above 1 indicates that its share price movements have shown sensitivity to overall market volatility. Based on this history, investors should be aware that Viavi Solutions are likely to rise strongly in times of greed, but sell off in times of fear. Beta is worth considering, but it's also important to consider whether Viavi Solutions is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below.

NasdaqGS:VIAV Income Statement, July 24th 2019
NasdaqGS:VIAV Income Statement, July 24th 2019

How does VIAV's size impact its beta?

Viavi Solutions is a fairly large company. It has a market capitalisation of US$3.3b, which means it is probably on the radar of most investors. It takes deep pocketed investors to influence the share price of a large company, so it's a little unusual to see companies this size with high beta values. It may be that that this company is more heavily impacted by broader economic factors than most.

What this means for you:

Since Viavi Solutions tends to moves up when the market is going up, and down when it's going down, potential investors may wish to reflect on the overall market, when considering the stock. In order to fully understand whether VIAV is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Viavi Solutions’s financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following:

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  1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for VIAV’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for VIAV’s outlook.

  2. Past Track Record: Has VIAV been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of VIAV's historicals for more clarity.

  3. Other Interesting Stocks: It's worth checking to see how VIAV measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.