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To: P.T.Burnem who wrote (3228)	8/12/1998 7:19:00 PM
From: MGV	Respond to of 11568

Standard & Poor's is dead wrong. If they were right, a stock that closely tracks SP500 - such as SPY - would have a beta of zero (near zero, since in real life SPY tracks SP500 futures as opposed to cash). However, since the beta is a correlation coefficient between a stock and SP500, SPY has the beta of one. Wrong. The S&P definition is correct. A stock that is perfectly correlated with the S&P has a Beta of 1. A stock that is perfectly negatively correlated has a Beta of -1. A stock or security that is perfectly uncorrelated (such as a "riskfree" note) with the S&P (as a market proxy) has a Beta of 0.

To: P.T.Burnem who wrote (3228)	8/12/1998 9:59:00 PM
From: Kevin Podsiadlik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11568

Standard & Poor's is dead wrong. So let's see, in one day, you've overridden Moody's bond rating system, corrected S&P on financial terminology, and declared a major financial website at least partially useless. Not bad for a day's work, eh? Market Guide goes as far back as five years in calculating beta This explains why their numbers are next to useless. Out of curiosity, what time frame would you consider to be useful? Let's see... stocksheet.com gives a 36 month beta of 0.87. Is that more to your liking? Perhaps you would prefer shorter still? One year? Market Edge gives a beta of 1.04 for that period. Shorter still? Six months? One month? One day??? And in any case, what source would you cite as a reliable recorder of beta and/or volatility, for those of us not knowledgeable enough to bang it out on our pocket calculators? Oh, and one more thing, what was your point about volatility in the first place?