A beginner’s guide to sourcing a company Beta
06/12/2019

Beta is the measurement of a company’s common stock price volatility relative to the market. If you’re trying to find a current beta for a company there are a number of places to look. These include:
- Bloomberg
- Fame
- Factiva
- Datastream
Please bear in mind that the figures may vary slightly depending on the source although the trend should be the same. The differences will be due to the way in which the betas have been calculated. A methodology should be available within each resource.
If you have any questions about betas or sourcing any other financial ratios, please ask any member of MIRC staff. Email us on mirc@cranfield.ac.uk or come in and see us.
Bloomberg
- Type Beta at the command prompt. Do not hit enter.
- You will see Functions, Securities and Search information displayed.
- To see the full range of information and help about Betas on Bloomberg, select ‘Beta: Definition’ from within the Search area (at the bottom of the menus).
Finding the Current Beta for a listed company
- Enter the name of the company you wish to view followed by Beta e.g. BP BETA. Do not hit enter.
- From the bottom of the menus, select ‘Search BP Beta’.
- The adjusted beta of BP will be displayed and links are given to the historical beta and regression analysis.

Finding the Historical (Raw) Beta
- From the Current Beta screen, clicking on Historical Beta takes you to a screen displaying a graph and additional data including the raw beta.
- Using the orange boxes on this screen you can change the date range, company, index, lag, etc.

Fame
FAME provides company Betas for UK and Irish companies only. Betas are calculated with reference to five key UK indices: FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE 350, FTSE AIM 100 and FTSE All-Share. To find the figures:
- Enter the company name in the search box and select from the dropdown options to open the company profile.
- Open the Table of Contents by clicking on the dots icon on the right.
- From the Table of Contents, open the ‘Stock’ menu and
select the option for ‘Beta and Price Volatility’.

The Beta screen will offer you figures for 1 month, 3 months and 1, 3 and 5 years for each of the indices available.
This section can then be exported into PDF or Excel using the on-screen options.
Factiva
Factiva is primarily a source of worldwide news but also includes a section on Companies/Markets which provides financial information for public companies globally and some private companies. Using this part of Factiva you can find both company and industry Betas.
To find the company and industry beta for any company:
- Hover over Companies/Markets on the menu bar and then select ‘Company’.
- Type your company name in the search box and select from the options
- From the Overview page, select ‘Reports’ from the left hand menu and then choose ‘Ratio Comparison Report’.

Datastream
Datastream provides current betas and pre-formatted expressions to calculate historical betas for quoted companies around the world. In order for Datastream to display Beta calculations, at least 2½ years of data are required. Data is not held historically although it is possible to use formulae to calculate historic Betas.
See also our post on Company Betas in Datastream for more information – not for the faint hearted!
Any questions about any of the above resources – or using them to source financial data, please do not hesitate to contact MIRC.
Feature image from Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/business-stock-finance-market-1730089/
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
Engineering problem to solve? Let Knovel help you find a solution
Did you know that Knovel provides you with more than just eBooks? Knovel is a key database for many engineering, mechanical and materials courses here at Cranfield University, and contains content from an extensive range ...
Working on your group project? We can help!
When undertaking a group project, typically you'll need to investigate a topic, decide on a methodology for your investigation, gather and collate information and data, share your findings with each other, and then formally report ...
Words matter – a conversational Integrated Vehicle Health Management lexicon
There are many well established barriers to successful digital transformation which prevent full realisation of desired benefits. It is generally recognised that only 30% of digital transformation efforts deliver these results. One of the ...
Library support for new research students
Welcome! We are very excited to welcome you to Cranfield, and we are looking forward to supporting you throughout your research degree. We are always happy to help you – all you need to do ...
Finding full-text Economist articles…
If you’re looking for The Economist, the place to go is ProQuest One Business. Follow these step-by-step instructions to get full-text access. Login here and click on the Publications option at the top, above the ...
New IEEE route to gold open access for UKRI-funded research
You probably know by now that if you publish a paper that acknowledges funding from UKRI (including Innovate UK) it must be made open access immediately upon publication with a CC-BY licence. To remind you, ...