Beta: A Powerful But Faulty Tool For Managing Risk

Beta: A Powerful But Faulty Tool For Managing Risk Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, When investors want to reduce risk, one commonly used tool is beta. For instance, an investor may sell higher-beta stocks and replace them with lower-beta ones to cushion against an expected market decline. Such a strategy is intuitive and widely used; however, it can be greatly flawed. We recently received a question from a client about how we use beta to manage our portfolios. Given recent volatility and declining prices, the timing could not be better to...