A stock had a 12% return last year when all overall stocks declined. Does it have a negative beta and low risk

Answer 1

Beta is the correlation coefficient of an individual stock to the market as a whole. If a stock moves in the opposite direction of the market, it has a negative Beta. A "risky" stock is one with a beta > 1.0, a neutral stock is one with a beta of 0 and a low risk stock has a beta < 1.0

Since this stock had an opposite return of the market, it would have a negative Beta. Assuming 12% < the absolute value of the market return, it would be low risk.