Finding Historical Beta on Bloomberg

The following instructions are intended to serve as a guide for looking up historical beta for a specific company using the Bloomberg terminal in the Foster Business Library. This assignment is regularly featured in Finance 423. If you have any questions, please ask someone at the reference desk for assistance and we will be happy to help. See also the research guide About Bloomberg or the black Bloomberg instruction binder next to PC #18.

Determine the company’s ticker symbol and the exchange on which it’s traded. For example, beta for Cascade Financial Corporation information is:
- Ticker: CASB
- Exchange: NASDAQ (where Cascade Financial stock is traded)
It is easy to look up this information using the Yahoo! Finance symbol lookup utility (http://finance.yahoo.com/l)
Log in to Bloomberg (get the login and password from someone at the reference desk).
- Press the “Cancel/Log out” button. This is the red button that is on the far right-hand side of the top row of keys.
- Type in the username and password, and press the “Go” (return) key
Look up the company’s BETA. After successfully logging in, it is only necessary to start typing:
- Enter the ticker symbol (e.g. CASB), press the F8 key (Equity), type the word “BETA” as in: CASB [F8 Equity] BETA
- Press the “Go” (return) key
Get information for a particular year
- Use the tab key to navigate through the different options on the screen.
- Ensure that the desired “Relative Index” is selected:
  - For the S&P 500 use: SPX
  - For the NYSE use: NYS
  - For the NASDAQ use: CCMP
- Change the “Period” to Quarterly
- In the “Range” section, enter in the desired date range using the number keys above the letters, as in: 12/31/01 12/31/02
- Press the “Go” (return) key
- Print the results.
  - Press the green “Print” key

14 April 2004; updated 11 January 2006. Nick Bicknell, nbick@u.washington.edu; updated 5 April 2005 by Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu.