CAPM and Investment Decisions

This mini-case provides a review of the methodology and rationale associated with the various capital budgeting evaluation methods such as payback period, discounted payback period, NPV, IRR, MIRR,

This decision may be the result of a conservative policy pursued by a firm. Restriction may be imposed on divisional heads on the total amount that they can commit on new projects.Another internal restriction for capital budgeting decision may be imposed by a firm based on the need to generate a minimum rate of return. Under this criterion only projects capable of generating the management’s expectation on the rate of return will be cleared.

CAPM is a model that describes the relationship between risk and expected return, and the formula itself measures the expected return of the portfolio. Mathematically, when beta is higher, meaning the portfolio has more systematic risk (in comparison to the market portfolio), the formula yields a higher expected return for the portfolio (since it is multiplied by the risk premium and is added to the risk free interest rate). This makes sense because the portfolio needs to

The CAPM is a single factor model because it based on the hypothesis that required rate of return can be predicted using one factor that being systematic risk. It looks at risk and rates of returns, compares then to the stock market providing a usable measure of risk to help investors determine what return they will get for risking their money in an investment. There are a lot of assumptions and drawbacks of CAPM that lead to the conclusion that those investors utilizing this

Capital budgeting is the decision process that managers use to identify those projects that add value to the firm’s value, and as such it is perhaps the most important task faced by financial managers and their staff. The process of evaluating projects is critical for a firm’s success. Capital budgeting is

Capital budgeting is very important in decision making for the financial manager of any firm. Most new projects take time in developing because of the research analysis required in opening a new addition to the company. The cash flow is a huge factor in making the decision of a project. For instance, capital expenditures require firms to outlay large sums of funds to initialize the project. Second, firms will need to formulate ways of generating and repaying these funds once they are initiate. Third, there must be a good since of timing and critical finance decision to make it all happen.

When making capital budgeting decisions, there are various techniques that can be utilised. Ross et al. (2008) describes that the predominant capital budgeting methods used as being the Net Present value (NPV) method, the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) method, the Payback method, and the Accounting Rate of Return (ARR) method. Conversely, Brealey, Myers and Allen (2011) proposes that the NPV and IRR methods are considered prestige compared to the ARR and the Payback Methods, as they take into account the time value of money. Thus, the following project evaluation will focus on using the NPV and IRR methods.

Using CAPM to provide the calculation for the equity, this presents both positive and negative effects.

1-a How can the CAPM be used to estimate the cost of capital for a real business investment decision?

This essay will highlight the use of Capital asset pricing model ( CAPM ) to be considered as a pricing theory model for assets . CAPM model helps investors to analyse the risk and what expectation to keep from an investment (Banz , 1981) . There are two types of risk

To reduce a firm’s specific risk or residual risk a portfolio should have negative covariance or rather it should have no variance at all, for large portfolios however calculating variance requires greater and sophisticated computing power. As such, Index models greatly decrease the computations needed to calculate the optimum portfolio. The use of such Index models also eliminates illogical or rather absurd results. The Single Index model (SIM) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) are such models used to calculate the optimum portfolio.

In order to test the validity of the CAPM, we have applied the two-step testing procedure for asset pricing model as proposed by Fama and Macbeth (1973) in their seminal paper.

According to the CAPM model:R_i=α+βR_m+ε, α represent the abnormal return gained by the portfolio. If the market is efficiency, the α has to be zero.

Even though there are flaws in the CAPM for empirical study, the approach of the linearity of expected return and risk is readily relevant. As Fama & French (2004:20) stated “… Markowitz’s portfolio model … is nevertheless a theoretical tour de force.” It could be seen that the study of this paper may possibly justify Fama & French’s study that stated the CAPM is insufficient in interpreting the expected return with respect to risk. This is due to the failure of considering the other market factors that would affect the stock price.

Capital budgeting is the most important management tool that enables managers of the organization to select the investment option that yields comprehensive cash flows and rate of return. For managers availability of capital whether in form of debt or equity is very limited and thus it become imperative for them to invest their limited and most important resource in perfect option that could prove to beneficial for the organization in the long run (Hickman et al, 2013). However, while using capital budgeting tool managers must understand its quantitative and qualitative considerations that are discussed below.