Is Eli Lilly Stock Increasing Your Market Risk?
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If you own Eli Lilly (LLY) stock, or are thinking of buying it after the shares rose 9.9% over the last five trading sessions while the S&P 500 fell 2.0%, you most likely hold an index fund as well. Adding any single stock shifts how your whole portfolio behaves when the market rises or falls, and your fund already absorbs the full force of those daily moves. So does adding Lilly pile more of that market risk on top of what your fund already carries?
Eli Lilly Stock Has Barely Followed The Market
No, not over the past year. Between October 31, 2025, and November 3, 2026, the S&P 500 lost 0.606% on the average day it fell, while a $10,000 holding of Lilly stock gained about $15.70. On the average day the index rose, it gained 0.634%, while that same holding gained about $27.60, less than half of what the index made.
Lilly took on only a small part of the market’s daily moves over that year. The stock recorded a beta of 0.24, a measure of how far it moves for each 1% move in the index.
That does not make Lilly a calm holding. Over the past year, its volatility, a measure of how widely the price swings over a year, was 35.4%, compared with 12.8% for the S&P 500. Lilly also failed to escape the market’s worst month of that year. When the index fell 5.1% in March 2026, a $10,000 Lilly holding lost about $1,257. That 12.6% drop was more than twice the index’s decline. So while Lilly has added little of the market’s risk on the average day, it brings large swings of its own.
Will Eli Lilly Keep Moving On Its Own News?
Most likely, because Lilly now earns most of its revenue from two medicines. During the October 29 call, management said Mounjaro and Zepbound brought in more than $16 billion of Lilly’s $24.4 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2026. Management also expects lower prices for its medicines to weigh on revenue, an impact more than offset by higher sales volumes. With that much of the business tied to two drugs, what happens to Mounjaro and Zepbound is likely to matter more for Lilly stock than what the market does.
Over the past year, Lilly’s daily moves had almost no link to the index’s. The two recorded a correlation of 0.09 on a scale from minus one to one, where zero means no link and one means lockstep.
Has Eli Lilly Paid You For Its Swings?
Yes. Over the five years from November 4, 2021, to November 3, 2026, Lilly returned 40.4% a year including dividends, compared with 11.7% for the S&P 500. Its swings over those five years were wider too, posting an annual volatility of 32.9% against 17.0% for the index. Each point of Lilly’s volatility earned 1.23 points of yearly return over that window, compared with 0.688 for the index, so Lilly’s swings have paid better than the market’s.
If the past year is a guide, a Lilly holding adds less to your money than your index fund on the market’s next up day, and it may gain rather than fall on the next down day. If you already own other makers of weight-loss and diabetes drugs, Lilly adds to that same bet rather than spreading your risk. The figure to watch is the combined revenue of Mounjaro and Zepbound in Lilly’s next report, expected in February 2027.
Who Is Watching Your Portfolio’s Risk When You’re Not?
Eli Lilly is one risk to keep an eye on, and most portfolios hold many. Watching all of them, day after day, is hard to do alone. Our partner advisory firm builds portfolios on Trefis research, starting with the HQ Portfolio, whose edge has been limiting losses when markets fall. Talk it through on a free 30-minute call, and bring your hardest questions.
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