How Does Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (FRA:HDD) Affect Your Portfolio Volatility?

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If you're interested in Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft (FRA:HDD), then you might want to consider its beta (a measure of share price volatility) in order to understand how the stock could impact your portfolio. Volatility is considered to be a measure of risk in modern finance theory. Investors may think of volatility as falling into two main categories. First, we have company specific volatility, which is the price gyrations of an individual stock. Holding at least 8 stocks can reduce this kind of risk across a portfolio. The second type is the broader market volatility, which you cannot diversify away, since it arises from macroeconomic factors which directly affects all the stocks on the market.

Some stocks are more sensitive to general market forces than others. Some investors use beta as a measure of how much a certain stock is impacted by market risk (volatility). While we should keep in mind that Warren Buffett has cautioned that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk', beta is still a useful factor to consider. To make good use of it you must first know that the beta of the overall market is one. A stock with a beta below one is either less volatile than the market, or more volatile but not corellated with the overall market. In comparison a stock with a beta of over one tends to be move in a similar direction to the market in the long term, but with greater changes in price.

View our latest analysis for Heidelberger Druckmaschinen

What HDD's beta value tells investors

Looking at the last five years, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen has a beta of 1.27. The fact that this is well above 1 indicates that its share price movements have shown sensitivity to overall market volatility. Based on this history, investors should be aware that Heidelberger Druckmaschinen are likely to rise strongly in times of greed, but sell off in times of fear. Beta is worth considering, but it's also important to consider whether Heidelberger Druckmaschinen is growing earnings and revenue. You can take a look for yourself, below.

DB:HDD Income Statement, June 23rd 2019
DB:HDD Income Statement, June 23rd 2019

How does HDD's size impact its beta?

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen is a rather small company. It has a market capitalisation of €427m, which means it is probably under the radar of most investors. It takes less money to influence the share price of a very small company. This may explain the excess volatility implied by this beta value.

What this means for you:

Since Heidelberger Druckmaschinen tends to moves up when the market is going up, and down when it's going down, potential investors may wish to reflect on the overall market, when considering the stock. This article aims to educate investors about beta values, but it's well worth looking at important company-specific fundamentals such as Heidelberger Druckmaschinen’s financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following:

  1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for HDD’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for HDD’s outlook.

  2. Past Track Record: Has HDD been consistently performing well irrespective of the ups and downs in the market? Go into more detail in the past performance analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of HDD's historicals for more clarity.

  3. Other Interesting Stocks: It's worth checking to see how HDD measures up against other companies on valuation. You could start with this free list of prospective options.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.

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