For Tasman Resources Ltd’s (ASX:TAS) shareholders, and also potential investors in the stock, understanding how the stock’s risk and return characteristics can impact 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. Different characteristics of a stock expose it to various levels of market risk, and the market as a whole represents a beta 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 Tasman Resources
What is TAS’s market risk?
With a beta of 1.51, Tasman Resources is a stock that tends to experience more gains than the market during a growth phase and also a bigger reduction in value compared to the market during a broad downturn. Based on this beta value, TAS 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 TAS's size and industry cause it to be more volatile?
With a market cap of AUD $53.47M, TAS falls within the small-cap spectrum of stocks, which are found to experience higher relative risk compared to larger companies. Furthermore, the company operates in the metals and mining industry, which has been found to have high sensitivity to market-wide shocks. So, investors should expect a larger beta for smaller companies operating in a cyclical industry in contrast with lower beta for larger firms in a more defensive industry. This is consistent with TAS’s individual beta value we discussed above. Fundamental factors can also drive the cyclicality of the stock, which we will take a look at next.
How TAS's assets could affect its 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 TAS’s ratio of fixed assets to total assets to see whether the company is highly exposed to the risk of this type of constraint. TAS's fixed assets to total assets ratio of higher than 30% shows that the company uses up a big chunk of its capital on assets that are hard to scale up or down in short notice. As a result, this aspect of TAS indicates a higher beta than a similar size company with a lower portion of fixed assets on their balance sheet. Similarly, TAS’s beta value conveys the same message.