The Capital Asset Pricing Model

Nearly all investors look to beta as a way of feeling out the risk of a stock or fund. Put simply, beta measures volatility, or the tendency to swing up and down, as compared to a benchmark. Fund managers that take a bullish stance on the short-term horizon may actively stock up on high-beta equities to drive up returns. Controlling beta becomes an obsession for managers; and after they get the balance just right, they feel confident and reassured in their risk profile. Menchero, Nagy, and Singh concentrate on three estimates of beta to test the accuracy of the measure overall. The first, naive beta, makes a gross simplification that all stocks have a beta of 1. Second, the historical beta can be computed by comparing stock

Financial theory accepts the belief that a share’s return should be proportional to the risk received by its holder. There is a need of a risk-return equilibrium model. Since the nativity of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), an equilibrium model was only the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The CAPM constitutes of two types of returns, the risk free rate of returns of the Treasury bills and beta times the return on the market portfolio. The following equation is the basis of this model:

‘The Capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a very useful model and it is used widely in the industry even though it is based on very strong assumptions. Discuss in the light of recent developments in the area.’

In the literature review, the author states that the CAPM has been the most favoured asset pricing model used since the 1960s. The CAPM though, has been questioned and its misspecifications identified since the 1970s, as the CAPM was unable to explain the risk measure and returns difference.

This report aims at implement two distinct approaches, which can indicate the expected return and risk of a two-stock portfolio, to generate a practical solution to risk-analyzing for stock-investing. The two approaches are Mean-Variance Approach and CAPM Approach. While we apply the Mean-Variance Approach to determine the expected return and standard deviation, we employ the CAPM approach to measure the beta and expected return of each stock. The calculations of the aforesaid mathematical characteristics will contain the weekly returns during a seven-year time period integrated with the ASX all ordinaries Accumulation Index as a substitute for the market index and Official Cash Rate (thereafter, OCR, which is the interest

Eugene Fama from the University of Chicago and Kenneth R. French from the Yale School of Management's were done a research on examining the validity of capital asset pricing model (CAPM). It was published in 1992; and well-known as The Fama-French three factors model (TFM).

Capital Asset Pricing Model(CAPM) is introduced by Sharpe, Lintner, and Mossin and this model is derived by Markowitz mean-variance model theory. CAPM is applied to investment decision problems. CAPM is also about the understanding of an assets return and also the diversify of risk.

A lot of criticism on the CAPM has arisen over the last decades. One finding by Basu in 1977 is often used by opponents of the model in order to take down the foundation of the CAPM. Basu[3] found that stocks with a low price –earnings ratio, called value stocks, tend to outperform stocks with a high price-earnings ratio, named growth stocks. As the CAPM only allows for fundamental risk to explain excess returns on stocks, the finding that stocks from companies with high fundamentals (earnings, sales, dividends) relative to price outperformed growth stocks was in contradiction with the classical CAPM.

Capital asset pricing has always been an active area in the finance literature. Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is one of the economic models used to determine the market price for risk and the appropriate measure of risk for a single asset. The CAPM shows that the equilibrium rates of return on all risky assets are function of their covariance with the market portfolio. This theory helps us understand why expected returns change through time. Furthermore, this model is developed in a hypothetical world with many assumptions.

The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of cap-weighted portfolio with non-cap-weighted portfolio and an in-depth analysis will be presented in the light of identifying the source of the performance of each portfolio using the Fama-French model.

The Efficient Markets theory has been a source of much controversy within both the academic and financial worlds. Eugene Fama first defined an “efficient” market as “a market where, given the available information, actual prices…represent very good estimates of intrinsic values” (1965, p.90). After Harry Roberts (1967) formed the “Efficient Market Hypothesis(EMH)”, Fama then went on to publish results that concluded the stock markets are efficient. Thus it is impossible to achieve consistent abnormal returns. However, investors daily are seeking to defy the EMH and therefore the hypothesis is under constant audit 252 days a year.

The CAPM (capital asset pricing model) is a model used to evaluate a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset in finance field, providing information to investor to make decisions about investment portfolios and guide investors’ investment behaviours (McLaney, 2006). The CAPM was invented by William F. Sharpe, John Lintner and Jan Mossin, basing on the earlier work of Harry Markowitz on diversification and modern portfolio theory, and now it is universally applied (Vernimmen, et

In 1959, Markowitz laid a portfolio theory where he introduced mean-variance efficient portfolio that explained minimum variance for given expected return and maximum return for given variance. This revolutionized the finance field and provided groundwork for Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) founded by William F. Sharpe (1964) and John Lintner (1965). Sharpe and Lintner showed that when investors hold mean-variance efficient portfolio and expect homogeneously, then even in absence of market fluctuations the portfolio formed would itself be mean-variance efficient portfolio.

CAPM: (191) “beta is the sole firm-specific risk determinant of the expected return on that stock”

Fama, E.F. & French, K.R. (2004). The Capital Asset Pricing Model: theory and evidence. Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (3).