In real economy financial and business risks exist. Financial risks are related to use of debt financing and are described by capital structure theories. Business risks associated with investments into specific company (and not to the entire market (industry)) and are described by CAPM (market or industry version).
Based on the portfolio theory by Harry Markowitz, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was developed independently [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5] by Jack Traynor (1961), William F. Sharp (1964), John Lintner (1965) and Jan Mossin (1966).
1.1. CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model)
1.1.1. Market approach
CAPM is a simple, but widely used, one–factor model that describes the relationship between the expected return on assets (stocks, investments, etc.) and the risk–free rate, taking into account systematic (business) risk. This relationship is described by the equity risk premium, which depends on the asset’s beta (which describes the asset’s correlation or sensitivity to the market), the risk–free rate (say, the Treasury bill rate or the central bank’s key rate), and the expected return in the market. CAPM assumes an idealized open market structure where all risky assets refer to all tradable shares available to everyone. In addition, we have a risk-free asset (for borrowing and/or lending in unlimited quantities) with an interest rate of kf . One assumes that all information is available to everyone, such as covariances, variances, average stock returns and so on. One also assume that investor is a rational, risk-averse, who uses the same Markowitz portfolio theory.
The following assumptions are made within the CAPM model:
- 1)
All investors are risk averse and have the same time frame to evaluate information.
- 2)
Unlimited capital exists to borrow at the risk–free rate.
- 3)
Investments can be divided into unlimited parts and sizes.
- 4)
Taxes, inflation and transaction costs are absent.
- 5)
Return and risk are linearly related.
CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) describes the profitability of asset and is described by the following formula
Here,
is risk free profitability,
β is the β–coefficient of the company. It shows the dependence of the return on the asset and the return on the market as a whole. The β–coefficient is described by the following formula
Here is the risk (standard deviation) of i–th asset, is market risk (standard deviation of market index), is covariance between i–th asset and market portfolio.
An investor invests in risky securities only if their return is higher than the return on risk–free securities, so always and .
The beta–coefficient of a security, β, has the meaning of the amount of riskiness of this security. It follows from formula (1) that:
1) if β=1 the yield of the security is equal to the yield of the average market portfolio ();
2) if β > 1, the security is more risky than the average on the security market ();
3) if β <1, the security is less risky than the average on the security market ().
Securities betas are calculated using statistical data on returns on specific securities and the average market returns on securities traded on the market.
1.1.2. Disadvantages of the CAPM model.
CAPM has some well–know disadvantages.
1.The CAPM formula only works under assumption that the market is dominated by purely rational players who make decisions that favor only investment returns. This, of course, is not always true.
2. CAPM assumes that each market participant acts on the basis of the same information. In reality, relevant information is distributed unevenly among the public, so some participants may make decisions based on information that others do not.
3. Using beta as the main part of the formula. But beta takes into account only changes in the stock price in the market. However the share price can change for reasons other than the market. Stocks can rise or fall in value for deliberate reasons, not just volatility.
4. CAPM only uses historical data. But historical stock price changes are not enough to determine the overall risk of an investment. Other factors should be considered, such as economic conditions, industry peculiarities and competitor characteristics, and internal and external activities of the company itself.
So, the model has a number of limitations: the model does not take into account taxes, transaction costs, non–transparency of the financial market, etc.
Finally, to predict future returns, a retrospective level of market risk is used, which leads to a forecast error.
1.1.2. Modifications of CAPM: The multiple factors models
The CAPM operates on only one factor that affects the future performance of a stock.
There are several models with multiple factors that modify the CAPM in this regard. Among them are Fama-French (three- and five- factor models) and APT (Arbitrage Pricing Theory) models [
22].
1.1.2.1. Fama-French model
In 1992, Y. Fama K. and French [
6,
7,
8,
9] proved that future returns are also affected by factors such as company size and industry affiliation. They have developed three- and five- factor models.
Fama–French Three–factor Model
Fama–French three–factor model takes into account two additional risk factors, namely, size and book to market equity along with market beta
were
SMB – the difference between the returns of companies with large and small capitalization;
HML – the difference between the returns of companies with low and high intrinsic value (indicator B/P)
Fama–French Five–factor Model
where
RMW – return on equity;
CMA – company capital expenditure.
1.1.2.2. Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT)
In the APT model, the return on an asset can be expressed by the following formula:
where
ai is a constant per asset;
Fi is a systematic factor, such as a macroeconomic or company-specific factor; β
i is the sensitivity of the asset in relation to the factor
Fi; and ε
i is a random variable with an expected mean of zero.
APT formula has the form:
where r
f is the risk-free rate of return, β
ik is the sensitivity of the asset
i with respect to factor k,
is the risk premium for factor k .
In opposite to the CAPM, which has only one factor and one beta, The APT formula has multiple factors that include non-company factors, which requires the asset’s beta with respect to each separate factor. The APT does not explain what these factors are, and APT model users should analytically determine factors that might affect the asset’s returns. The factor used in the CAPM is the difference between the market rate of return and the risk-free rate of return.
The CAPM is a one-factor model and is simpler to use, thus investors prefer use it to valuate the expected rate of return rather than using APT, which requires users valuate the multiple factors.
1.1.3. Industry approach
CAPM has an alternative approach that refers to the industrial index rather than the market.
Here,
is risk free profitability,
β is the β–coefficient of the company. In this case it shows the dependence of the return on the asset and the return on the industry as a whole. The β–coefficient now is described by the following formula
Here is the risk of i–th asset, is industry risk (standard deviation of industry index), is covariance between i–th asset and industry index. Note, that the industry approach better describes the return on an asset than the market approach.
The CAPM approach is still evolving and we will describe one of the directions of this development below.
1.1.4. The symmetric CAPM
One of the remaining internal problems of CAPM is the distribution function. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) assumes a Gaussian or Normal distribution. In practice, this assumption may be violated. In [
10], a symmetric CAPM is proposed, assuming distributions with lighter or heavier tails than the normal distribution. Elliptic distributions (normal, exponential and Student–t) are considered. This consideration is of a general nature. Authors conducted a detailed case study to apply the obtained results estimating the systematic risk of the financial assets of a Chilean company with real data. A Chilean company is just illustration of obtained results.
In addition, the authors of [
10] study the methods of leverage and local impact for diagnostics in a symmetric CAPM. It is concluded that the considered models give better results than the CAPM with Gaussian distribution.
In [
11,
12,
13], empirical studies were carried out under the assumption that stock returns have distributions with heavier tails than the normal distribution.
The Student–t distribution instead of the normal distribution was considered in [
12] and in [
14], taking into account the maximum likelihood method for estimating its parameters. Paper [
13] concluded that asset valuation should be carried out within the framework of the CAPM and the discounted dividend model.