The Capital Asset Pricing Model Versus The Arbitrage Pricing Theory

"This paper describes both the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory. Discussion of the CAPM includes a detailed definition of its assumptions and a review of its conclusions. The APT is developed in a more rigorous and complete fashion. Discussion of the APT continues by defining four possible macrofactors and using Discounted Cash Flow analysis as supporting evidence of their validity. The final chapter presents a detailed summary and comparison of the two models [sic] strengths and weaknesses. It is evident that without additional testing and analysis of the APT, researchers remain unable to agree on which model provides the most accurate estimate of security prices. Researchers advocating the APT maintain that it is the superior model, however, they have not been able to convince many practitioners."--Author's abstract.

Two of the most important and well known models for predicting equity returns ar e the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT). This project will first examine and compare these two models theoretically fro m all aspects focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of each while taking into consideration past empirical work. In addition, this project will compare the empirical performance of the CAPM and the APT, specifically the Fama-French Thre e Factor Model, in predicting stock returns using stocks on the Dow Jones Indust rial Average. Using traditional measures such as the adjusted R-Squared, t-stat istic, and Wald test, no model was found to be superior to the other. As a resu lt, the Hansen-Jagannathan Distance test was used as a second resort. This test shows that the CAPM is actually superior to the APT. Chapter I will introduce both models and their implications. Chapter II and III will focus on the CAPM and APT respectively describing all their aspects includ ing evolution, strengths, weaknesses and past empirical applications. Chapter I V will comprise of an empirical study comparing both models to see which one doe s a better job in predicting equity returns. Chapter V will conclude the projec t with certain policy implications.

Diploma Thesis from the year 1996 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,3, European Business School - International University Schloß Reichartshausen Oestrich-Winkel, language: English, abstract: A “few surprises” could be the trivial answer of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory if asked for the major determinants of stock returns. The APT was developed as a traceable framework of the main principles of capital asset pricing in financial markets. It investigates the causes underlying one of the most important fields in financial economics, namely the relationship between risk and return. The APT provides a thorough understanding of the nature and origins of risk inherent in financial assets and how capital markets reward an investor for bearing risk. Its fundamental intuition is the absence of arbitrage which is, indeed, central to finance and which has been used in virtually all areas of financial study. Since its introduction two decades ago, the APT has been subject to extensive theoretical as well as empirical research. By now, the arbitrage theory is well established in both respects and has enlightened our perception of capital markets. This paper aims to present the APT as an appropriate instrument of capital asset pricing and to link its principles to the valuation of risky income streams. The objective is also to provide an overview of the state of art of APT in the context of alternative capital market theories. For this purpose, Section 2 describes the basic concepts of the traditional asset pricing model, the CAPM, and indicates differences to arbitrage theory. Section 3 constitutes the main part of this paper introducing a derivation of the APT. Emphasis is laid on principles rather than on rigorous proof. The intuition of the pricing formula and its consistency with the state space preference theory are discussed. Important contributions to the APT are classified and briefly reviewed, the question of APT’s empirical evidence and of its risk factors is attempted to be answered. In Section 4, arbitrage theory is linked to traditional as well as to innovative valuation methods. It includes a discussion of the DCF method, arbitrage valuation and previews an option pricing approach to security valuation. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper with some practical considerations from the investment community.

This handbook in two parts covers key topics of the theory of financial decision making. Some of the papers discuss real applications or case studies as well. There are a number of new papers that have never been published before especially in Part II.Part I is concerned with Decision Making Under Uncertainty. This includes subsections on Arbitrage, Utility Theory, Risk Aversion and Static Portfolio Theory, and Stochastic Dominance. Part II is concerned with Dynamic Modeling that is the transition for static decision making to multiperiod decision making. The analysis starts with Risk Measures and then discusses Dynamic Portfolio Theory, Tactical Asset Allocation and Asset-Liability Management Using Utility and Goal Based Consumption-Investment Decision Models.A comprehensive set of problems both computational and review and mind expanding with many unsolved problems are in an accompanying problems book. The handbook plus the book of problems form a very strong set of materials for PhD and Masters courses both as the main or as supplementary text in finance theory, financial decision making and portfolio theory. For researchers, it is a valuable resource being an up to date treatment of topics in the classic books on these topics by Johnathan Ingersoll in 1988, and William Ziemba and Raymond Vickson in 1975 (updated 2 nd edition published in 2006).

This book proposes a new capital asset pricing model dubbed the ZCAPM that outperforms other popular models in empirical tests using US stock returns. The ZCAPM is derived from Fischer Black’s well-known zero-beta CAPM, itself a more general form of the famous capital asset pricing model (CAPM) by 1990 Nobel Laureate William Sharpe and others. It is widely accepted that the CAPM has failed in its theoretical relation between market beta risk and average stock returns, as numerous studies have shown that it does not work in the real world with empirical stock return data. The upshot of the CAPM’s failure is that many new factors have been proposed by researchers. However, the number of factors proposed by authors has steadily increased into the hundreds over the past three decades. This new ZCAPM is a path-breaking asset pricing model that is shown to outperform popular models currently in practice in finance across different test assets and time periods. Since asset pricing is central to the field of finance, it can be broadly employed across many areas, including investment analysis, cost of equity analyses, valuation, corporate decision making, pension portfolio management, etc. The ZCAPM represents a revolution in finance that proves the CAPM as conceived by Sharpe and others is alive and well in a new form, and will certainly be of interest to academics, researchers, students, and professionals of finance, investing, and economics.