Beta is a measure of the systematic risk of a stock. It is a co-efficient which measures the level of correlation between a stock's price and changes in a specific market index. As a measure of volatility, beta is used to determine the risk associated with a stock. When a stock is higher than 1.0, it implies the stock is volatile and swings faster than changes in the market. However, such volatile stocks provide higher returns associated with higher risks. The beta of less than 1.0 is an indicator of lower-risk stock which provides a lower return.