There are 4 ways to calculate Beta in Excel (risk measurement which assumes risk can be measured by the covariance of between specific stock and the whole market). Before the calculation, we could get all the price information online (daily price in the past five years in Yahoo finance), and then we calculate both the daily returns of the index (which approximately to the whole market) and the specific stock. In this book the author assumes the compounding is constant, so he uses Ln(Pt/P(t-1)) , but when I was in MBA, my professor uses normal return rate (P1-P0+D)/P0.
1. Using XY scatter: insert the XY Scatter in the excel (Insert--Scatter) and then click the graph and click add Trendline and then click show the formula and R2
2. Using Covariance function to calculate covariance between specific stock and the index. Then calculate the variance of the index. And then use the covariance divided by the variance.
3. Using Linst function which was coding with VBA. The coding was provided in the book and I attached at the end of this comment.
4. Using add-in in the Excel (data-data analysis-regression) X use the Index data and Y use the specific stock data.
That's from this book. Below is some method used in real work.
This is for stock valuation purpose. In M&A perspective, banker typically uses levered and unlevered Beta to calculate: attached is the link for further study.
* Since there is a finite number of base-sequences in our DNA and also a finite number of genes (combinations of those base sequences), isn't there a finite number of "possible" human beings? What is that number?