Does Market Volatility Impact Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ARNA) Share Price?

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If you own shares in Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA) then it's worth thinking about how it contributes to the volatility of your portfolio, overall. In finance, Beta is a measure of volatility. 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. Beta is a widely used metric to measure a stock's exposure to market risk (volatility). Before we go on, it's worth noting that Warren Buffett pointed out in his 2014 letter to shareholders that 'volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' Having said that, beta can still be rather useful. The first thing to understand about beta is 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Arena Pharmaceuticals

What we can learn from ARNA's beta value

Zooming in on Arena Pharmaceuticals, we see it has a five year beta of 1.75. This is above 1, so historically its share price has been influenced by the broader volatility of the stock market. If the past is any guide, we would expect that Arena Pharmaceuticals shares will rise quicker than the markets in times of optimism, but fall faster in times of pessimism. Many would argue that beta is useful in position sizing, but fundamental metrics such as revenue and earnings are more important overall. You can see Arena Pharmaceuticals's revenue and earnings in the image below.

Could ARNA's size cause it to be more volatile?

Arena Pharmaceuticals is a fairly large company. It has a market capitalisation of US$2.8b, which means it is probably on the radar of most investors. It has a relatively high beta, suggesting it may be somehow leveraged to macroeconomic conditions. For example, it might be a high growth stock with lots of investors trading the shares. It's notable when large companies to have high beta values, because it usually takes substantial capital flows to move their share prices.

What this means for you:

Beta only tells us that the Arena Pharmaceuticals share price is sensitive to broader market movements. This could indicate that it is a high growth company, or is heavily influenced by sentiment because it is speculative. Alternatively, it could have operating leverage in its business model. Ultimately, beta is an interesting metric, but there's plenty more to learn. In order to fully understand whether ARNA is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Arena Pharmaceuticals’s financial health and performance track record. I highly recommend you dive deeper by considering the following: