Within these broad categories, The following comments indicate that a number of survey participants use more pragmatic approaches, which combine published beta estimates or adjust published estimates in various heuristic ways.
We asked our sample companies, "what do you use as your volatility or beta factor?" A sampling of responses shows that the choice is not always a simple one:
- "(we use) adjusted betas reported by bloomberg. At times, our stock has been extremely volatile. If at a particular time the factor is considered unreasonably hight, we are apt to use a lower (more consistent) one."
-"we begin with the observed 60-month covariance between our stock and the market. We also consider value line, BARRA, S&P betas for comparison and may adjust the observed beta to match assessment of future risk."
-"we average Merrill Lynch and Value line figures and use bloomberg as a check."
-"we do not use betas estimated on our stock directly. Our company beta is built up as a weighted average of our business segments betas---the segment betas are estimated using pure-play firm betas of comparable companies.