ASX:WCN Income Statement Jan 21st 18
How WCN’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 test WCN’s ratio of fixed assets to total assets in order to determine how high the risk is associated with this type of constraint. WCN’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. Thus, we can expect WCN 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 WCN’s actual beta value suggests, which is lower stock volatility relative to the market.
What this means for you:
You could benefit from lower risk during times of economic decline by holding onto WCN. 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. Depending on the composition of your portfolio, WCN may be a valuable stock to hold onto in order to cushion the impact of a downturn. What I have not mentioned in my article here are important company-specific fundamentals such as White Cliff Minerals’s financial health and performance track record. I urge you to complete your research by taking a look at the following:
- 1. Financial Health: Is WCN’s operations financially sustainable? Balance sheets can be hard to analyze, which is why we’ve done it for you. Check out our financial health checks here.
- 2. Past Track Record: Has WCN 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 WCN’s historicals for more clarity.
- 3. 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.