American States Water Co Beta

What is the Beta of American States Water Co?

The Beta of American States Water Co. is 0.44

What is the definition of Beta?

BETA indicates whether a stock is more or less volatile than the market as a whole. A beta less than 1 indicates that the stock is less volatile than the market, while a beta more than 1 indicates that the stock is more volatile. Volatility is measured as the fluctuation of the price around the mean.

Beta is a measure of the risk arising from exposure to general market movements as opposed to idiosyncratic factors. The market portfolio of all investable assets has a beta of exactly 1. A beta below 1 can indicate either an investment with lower volatility than the market, or a volatile investment whose price movements are not highly correlated with the market. A beta greater than one generally means that the asset both is volatile and tends to move up and down with the market. Beta is important because it measures the risk of an investment that cannot be reduced by diversification. It does not measure the risk of an investment held on a stand-alone basis, but the amount of risk the investment adds to an already-diversified portfolio. In the capital asset pricing model, beta risk is the only kind of risk for which investors should receive an expected return higher than the risk-free rate of interest.