How Cameco Corporation (TSE:CCO) Can Impact Your Portfolio Volatility
If you are a shareholder in Cameco Corporation’s (TSX:CCO), or are thinking about investing in the company, knowing how it contributes to the risk and reward profile of your portfolio is important. Every stock in the market is exposed to market risk, which arises from macroeconomic factors such as economic growth and geo-political tussles just to name a few. This is measured by its beta. Not every stock is exposed to the same level of market risk, and the market as a whole represents a beta value of one. A stock with a beta greater than one is expected to exhibit higher volatility resulting from market-wide shocks compared to one with a beta below one.
View our latest analysis for Cameco
What does CCO’s beta value mean?
With a five-year beta of 0.93, Cameco appears to be a less volatile company compared to the rest of the market. The stock will exhibit muted movements in both the downside and upside, in response to changing economic conditions, whereas the general market may move by a lot more. CCO’s beta implies it may be a stock that investors with high-beta portfolios might find relevant if they wanted to reduce their exposure to market risk, especially during times of downturns.
How does CCO’s size and industry impact its risk?
A market capitalisation of CA$5.13B puts CCO in the basket of established companies, which is not a guarantee of low relative risk, though they do tend to experience a lower level of relative risk compared to smaller entities. But, CCO’s industry, oil and gas, is considered to be cyclical, which means it is more volatile than the market over the economic cycle. Therefore, investors can expect a low beta associated with the size of CCO, but a higher beta given the nature of the industry it operates in. This is an interesting conclusion, since its industry suggests CCO should be more volatile than it actually is. There may be a more fundamental driver which can explain this inconsistency, which we will examine below.
Can CCO’s asset-composition point to a higher beta?
During times of economic downturn, low demand may cause companies to readjust production of their goods and services. It is more difficult for companies to lower their cost, if the majority of these costs are generated by fixed assets. Therefore, this is a type of risk which is associated with higher beta. I examine CCO’s ratio of fixed assets to total assets to see whether the company is highly exposed to the risk of this type of constraint. Given a fixed to total assets ratio of over 30%, CCO seems to be a company which invests a big chunk of its capital on assets that cannot be scaled down on short-notice. Thus, we can expect CCO to be more volatile in the face of market movements, relative to its peers of similar size but with a lower proportion of fixed assets on their books. However, this is the opposite to what CCO’s actual beta value suggests, which is lower stock volatility relative to the market.
What this means for you:
CCO may be a worthwhile stock to hold onto in order to cushion the impact of a downturn. Depending on the composition of your portfolio, low-beta stocks such as CCO is valuable to lower your risk of market exposure, in particular, during times of economic decline. In order to fully understand whether CCO is a good investment for you, we also need to consider important company-specific fundamentals such as Cameco’s financial health and performance track record. I urge you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CCO’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for CCO’s outlook.
Past Track Record: Has CCO 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 CCO’s historicals for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
