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Q73·GS Paper 1 · Prelims 2023

Finance term 'beta' — what it refers to

EconomyFinancial Markets & InstrumentsFactual singleMediumStatic

Question

In the context of finance, the term 'beta' refers to

Options

a

the process of simultaneous buying and selling of an asset from different platforms

b

an investment strategy of a portfolio manager to balance risk versus reward

c

a type of systemic risk that arises where perfect hedging is not possible

d

a numeric value that measures the fluctuations of a stock to changes in the overall stock market

Answer

Explanation

In corporate finance and investing, Beta (β) is a quantitative metric used to measure a stock's volatility (systematic risk) relative to the overall market. A beta greater than 1.0 indicates the stock is more volatile than the market, while a beta less than 1.0 indicates it is less volatile.

Alpha measures outperformance against a benchmark; Beta simply measures relative volatility against that benchmark.

Answer: (d).

Question details

Year

2023

Paper

GS Paper 1

Question

Q73

Subject

Economy

Sub-topic

Financial Markets & Instruments

Type

Factual single

Difficulty

Medium

Nature

Static

Source hint

Capital Asset Pricing Model / Systematic Market Risk Beta

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