Yahoo Finance Liberty Gold Corp. (TSE:LGD): What Does Its Beta Value Mean For Your Portfolio?
If you're interested in Liberty Gold Corp. (TSE:LGD), 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 category is company specific volatility. This can be dealt with by limiting your exposure to any particular stock. The other type, which cannot be diversified away, is the volatility of the entire market. Every stock in the market is exposed to this volatility, which is linked to the fact that stocks prices are correlated in an efficient market.
Some stocks are more sensitive to general market forces than others. 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 below one is either less volatile than the market, or more volatile but not corellated with the overall market. In comparison a stock with a beta of over one tends to be move in a similar direction to the market in the long term, but with greater changes in price.
View our latest analysis for Liberty Gold
What does LGD's beta value mean to investors?
Given that it has a beta of 1.72, we can surmise that the Liberty Gold share price has been fairly sensitive to market volatility (over the last 5 years). Based on this history, investors should be aware that Liberty Gold are likely to rise strongly in times of greed, but sell off in times of fear. Many would argue that beta is useful in position sizing, but fundamental metrics such as revenue and earnings are more important overall. You can see Liberty Gold's revenue and earnings in the image below.
Could LGD's size cause it to be more volatile?
Liberty Gold is a rather small company. It has a market capitalisation of CA$224m, which means it is probably under the radar of most investors. It takes less money to influence the share price of a very small company. This may explain the excess volatility implied by this beta value.
What this means for you:
Since Liberty Gold has a reasonably high beta, it's worth considering why it is so heavily influenced by broader market sentiment. For example, it might be a high growth stock or have a lot of operating leverage in its business model. In order to fully understand whether LGD is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Liberty Gold’s financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for LGD’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for LGD’s outlook.
Past Track Record: Has LGD 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 LGD's historicals for more clarity.
Other Interesting Stocks: It's worth checking to see how LGD measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options.
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.
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