Crownia Holdings Ltd (TSXV:CNH): How Does It Impact Your Portfolio?
For Crownia Holdings Ltd’s (TSXV:CNH) shareholders, and also potential investors in the stock, understanding how the stock’s risk and return characteristics can impact your portfolio is important. There are two types of risks that affect the market value of a listed company such as CNH. The first risk to think about is company-specific, which can be diversified away by investing in other companies in order to lower your exposure to one particular stock. The other type of risk, which cannot be diversified away, is market risk. Every stock in the market is exposed to this risk, which arises from macroeconomic factors such as economic growth and geo-political tussles just to name a few.
Not all stocks are expose to the same level of market risk. A popular measure of market risk for a stock is its beta, and the market as a whole represents a beta value of one. Any stock with a beta of greater than one is considered more volatile than the market, and those with a beta less than one is generally less volatile.
View our latest analysis for Crownia Holdings
What does CNH's beta value mean?
Crownia Holdings’s five-year beta of 1.56 means that the company’s value will swing up by more than the market during prosperous times, but also drop down by more in times of downturns. This level of volatility indicates bigger risk for investors who passively invest in the stock market index. Based on this beta value, CNH can help magnify your portfolio return, especially if it is predominantly made up of low-beta stocks. If the market is going up, a higher exposure to the upside from a high-beta stock can push up your portfolio return.
Could CNH's size and industry cause it to be more volatile?
CNH, with its market capitalisation of CAD $8.01M, is a small-cap stock, which generally have higher beta than similar companies of larger size. Furthermore, the company operates in the trading companies and distributors industry, which has been found to have high sensitivity to market-wide shocks. As a result, we should expect higher beta for small-cap stocks in a cyclical industry compared to larger stocks in a defensive industry. This supports our interpretation of CNH’s beta value discussed above. Fundamental factors can also drive the cyclicality of the stock, which we will take a look at next.
Can CNH'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 CNH’s ratio of fixed assets to total assets to see whether the company is highly exposed to the risk of this type of constraint. Considering fixed assets account for less than a third of the company's overall assets, CNH seems to have a smaller dependency on fixed costs to generate revenue. As a result, the company may be less volatile relative to broad market movements, compared to a company of similar size but higher proportion of fixed assets. This outcome contradicts CNH’s current beta value which indicates an above-average volatility.
What this means for you:
Are you a shareholder? You could benefit from higher returns during times of economic growth by holding onto CNH. Its low fixed cost also means that, in terms of operating leverage, it is relatively flexible during times of economic downturns. Consider the stock in terms of your other portfolio holdings, and whether it is worth investing more into CNH.
Are you a potential investor? I recommend that you look into CNH's fundamental factors such as its current valuation and financial health. Take into account your portfolio sensitivity to the market before you invest in the stock, as well as where we are in the current economic cycle. CNH may be a great investment during times of economic growth.
Beta is one aspect of your portfolio construction to consider when holding or entering into a stock. But it is certainly not the only factor. Take a look at our most recent infographic report on Crownia Holdings for a more in-depth analysis of the stock to help you make a well-informed investment decision. But if you are not interested in Crownia Holdings anymore, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.
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.
