Yahoo Finance How Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:NATR) Can Impact Your Portfolio Volatility
If you own shares in Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc. (NASDAQ:NATR) then it’s worth thinking about how it contributes to the volatility of your portfolio, overall. In finance, Beta is a measure of volatility. Modern finance theory considers volatility to be a measure of risk, and there are two main types of price volatility. First, we have company specific volatility, which is the price gyrations of an individual stock. Holding at least 8 stocks can reduce this kind of risk across a portfolio. The second sort is caused by the natural volatility of markets, overall. For example, certain macroeconomic events will impact (virtually) all stocks on the market.
Some stocks are more sensitive to general market forces than others. Some investors use beta as a measure of how much a certain stock is impacted by market risk (volatility). While we should keep in mind that Warren Buffett has cautioned that ‘Volatility is far from synonymous with risk’, beta is still a useful factor to consider. To make good use of it you must first know that the beta of the overall market is one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, while those with a beta below one are either less volatile or poorly correlated with the market.
Check out our latest analysis for Nature’s Sunshine Products
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What NATR’s beta value tells investors
With a beta of 1.08, (which is quite close to 1) the share price of Nature’s Sunshine Products has historically been about as voltile as the broader market. If the future looks like the past, we could therefore consider it likely that the stock price will experience share price volatility that is roughly similar to the overall market. Beta is worth considering, but it’s also important to consider whether Nature’s Sunshine Products is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below.
Does NATR’s size influence the expected beta?
With a market capitalisation of US$157m, Nature’s Sunshine Products is a very small company by global standards. It is quite likely to be unknown to most investors. It doesn’t take much money to really move the share price of a company as small as this one. That makes it somewhat unusual that it has a beta value so close to the overall market.
What this means for you:
Nature’s Sunshine Products has a beta value quite close to that of the overall market. That doesn’t tell us much on its own, so it is probably worth considering whether the company is growing, if you’re looking for stocks that will go up more than the overall market. In order to fully understand whether NATR is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Nature’s Sunshine Products’s financial health and performance track record. I urge you to continue your research by taking a look at the following:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for NATR’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for NATR’s outlook.
Past Track Record: Has NATR 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 NATR’s historicals for more clarity.
Other Interesting Stocks: It’s worth checking to see how NATR measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
