yahoo, google, or reuters?

brut

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i'm looking to compile the beta value for a range of stocks. all of these sites give quopte different beta values, without giveing any definition of what the beta is measured against. does anyone know what these beta's are quoted against, or whose values are most reliable?
 
Hi Brut

The FTSE 100 firms betas on yahoo and Reuters are referenced to the FTSE 100. Not sure about Google but I can't see why it would be any different.

Reuters are a big data vendor, so I would go with them.

Are they all massively out of range with respect to each other? Have you tried computing the beta yourself for a few stocks? If so, how did your results fair relative to the data vendor beta quotes? As the calculation is done via regression, I guess it does leave some margin for error (not too much though).

JD
 
Hi JD. thanks for your reply.

it seems strange that they don't define how their beta is generated, since its fundmental to its meaning.

did you find somewhere on yahoo or reutuers that they reference their ftse100 beta's to the ftse100?

for the stse stocks there is not too much difference, maybe around 0.2 max, which is reasonable is suppose.

here's an example of a dow stoack though, wal mart WMT

yahoo 0.81
reuters 0.76
google 0.02

brut
 
Hi Brut

I don't know for sure but as far as I am aware, all stocks in the UK market are judged with the FTSE 100 as the benchmark.

In the US it is normally the S&P500, but it's possible that the DOW may be used on some occassions. I agree, they should all define for sure which benchmark index they are using.

One other thing, the Google finance is a beta* at the moment, so maybe it's having some teething problems??

* Not to be confused with stock 'beta' - :D
 
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jd, thanks for the info,

google finance is a beta, so dont trust their beta's : )
 
i'm looking to compile the beta value for a range of stocks. all of these sites give quopte different beta values, without giveing any definition of what the beta is measured against. does anyone know what these beta's are quoted against, or whose values are most reliable?

The last time I looked up the definitions in their data glossaries (not easy to do any more!), these were the definitions I found:

IBD defined theirs as a 12-month calculation
Yahoo defined theirs as a 3-year calculation
Zacks and Reuters defined theirs as a 5-year calculation

I thought Google got their data from Reuters, so I'm surprised you saw different numbers between them.
 
hi rharmeluink, thankls for your message. do you know if they indicated what index the beta's were calculated against, the s&p ?
 
The last time I looked up the definitions in their data glossaries (not easy to do any more!), these were the definitions I found:

IBD defined theirs as a 12-month calculation
Yahoo defined theirs as a 3-year calculation
Zacks and Reuters defined theirs as a 5-year calculation

I thought Google got their data from Reuters, so I'm surprised you saw different numbers between them.

If you have the option, look at the beta values for the 1 year period, 5 years is way too long as betas shift over time. They shifted a lot when the credit crunch hit.
 
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