Validity of Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM) (Empirical Evidences from Amman Stock Exchange)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to test the validity of CAPM in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the period (2010 – 2014), which was divided into three sub periods. We used monthly returns of 60 stocks of Jordanian companies listed in ASE. Black, Jensen and Scholes (1972) and Fama and MacBeth (1973) methods were used to test the CAPM in different study sub-periods. The analysis results showed that higher risk (beta) is not associated with higher levels of return, which violated the CAPM assumption. Results of the study leads to contradict the theory’s assumption that beta coefficient is a good toll to predict the relationship between risk and return; hence the beta coefficient of some portfolios in the three sub periods was not significant. In addition, the results of testing SML violated the CAPM assumption in the three sub periods that, the slope should be equal to the average risk premium. Finally, tests of nonlinearity of the relationship between return and betas validated the CAPM hypothesis, that the expected return-beta relationship is linear. Depending on the above results, we couldn’t find conclusive evidence in support of CAPM in ASE.