Highly Volatile Investments: Good Or Bad? That Depends…

If your goal is to stash money away and avoid risk as much as possible, then low volatility investment options are for you. After all, avoiding excessive risk is the foundation of Weiss investment ratings.

On the other hand, if you’re the type of investor looking to get in, make money, and get out, then higher volatility can help your cause. However, the opportunity for higher returns over a shorter period of time comes with a downside: a lot more risk.

Sometimes a volatile stock gets a Weiss “Buy” rating, but this is rare. This means that Weiss believes the stock is worth buying and holding for an extended period of time.

The beta values for the stocks below indicate high volatility, with some exceeding the market as much as seven-fold. But we picked the best of both worlds: highly volatile with high returns. Three of them even have “Buy” ratings from Weiss.

These stocks have shown consistency in returns, beating the industry’s one, three and five-year averages. They all have at least $100 million in market capitalization and a beta of two or more.

The list is in descending order by one-year total return.



Name


Ticker
Weiss
Investment
Rating


Beta
1-Year
Total
Return %
3-Year
Total
Return %
5-Year
Total
Return %
Market
Cap. in
Billions $
Energy Recovery, Inc. ERII C- 7.60 359.33 130.09 346.01 0.64
Fonar Corp. FONR B 3.16 117.14 294.81 1,082.22 0.13
Banco Macro S.A. BMA B 2.17 77.33 340.45 206.39 4.68
BE Semiconduct Ind NV BESIY C 2.54 73.51 235.51 533.94 1.21
Trex Co. inc. TREX B 2.39 58.37 174.76 574.82 1.91
Table data as of 8/26/2016

The table above only highlights the top five one-year performers, based on total returns. The entire list has additional stocks that also fit the above mentioned criteria. Click here to see them all.

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