A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[OldAIMGuy]

Re: BETA for ETFs................

It's not math, but you can get a visual impression of BETA using Stock Charts. You can set the X-axis to 3 years (754 days) or 5 years (1259 days) and plot the ETF in question against the SPY.

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FVL,spy

FVL would appear to have a higher BETA than SPY over the 3 and 5 year time frame. You can try this with the same sectors from several different suppliers to get a feel for the suppliers' performance, too.

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?spy%2Ciyc%2Cpez%2Cfxd

Again at the 5 year time frame, IYC seems to out-perform its more expensive alternatives and strictly the SPY. It's BETA would appear to not be too different and correlation to the SPY is quite evident.

Hope this helps. Morningstar does show BETA under their Ratings and Risk header and you can select 3, 5, and 10 years as the time used for calculation. (that's if the ETF is old enough for such data)

http://performance.morningstar.com/funds/etf/ratings-risk.action?t=IYC®ion=usa&culture=en_US