A beta above 1 means the stock is more volatile, while a beta below 1 means it is less volatile. Calculating beta involves comparing the stock’s past price movements to market indices.

This article, though, focuses on a stock’s beta. Probably the best way to calculate beta is via a spreadsheet because of the vast amount of necessary data. Collecting historical price data for a ...

To calculate beta, investors divide the covariance of an individual stock (say, Apple) with the overall market, often represented by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, by the variance of the ...