Abstract
This paper proposes a Markov regime-switching asset-pricing model and investigates the asymmetric risk-return relationship under different regimes for the Chinese stock market. It was found that the Chinese stock market has two significant regimes: a persistent bear market and a bull market. In regime 1, the risk premiums on common risk factors were relatively higher and consistent with the hypothesis that investors require more compensation for taking the same amount of risks in a bear regime when there is a higher risk-aversion level. Moreover, return dispersions among the Fama–French 25 portfolios were captured by the beta patterns from our proposed Markov regime-switching Fama–French three-factor model, implying that a positive risk-return relationship holds in regime 1. On the contrary, in regime 2, when lower risk premiums could be observed, portfolios with a big size or low book-to-market ratio undertook higher risk loadings, implying that the stocks that used to be known as “good” stocks were much riskier in a bull market. Thus, a risk-return relationship followed other patterns in this period.
Highlights
The Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), first introduced by Markowitz (1952), describes the relationship between risk and expected return statistically using mean-variance optimization
We address this problem by putting multi-factor asset-pricing models under the Markov regime switching (MRS) framework, in which regime switches follow a Markov chain rule, and observations will be continuous in the time horizon
The MR-FF3 model was first estimated in the expanding window regressions, and the Markov regime transition matrix and conditional mean parameters were estimated under a root mean squared prediction error (RMSPE) criterion
Summary
The Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), first introduced by Markowitz (1952), describes the relationship between risk and expected return statistically using mean-variance optimization. As Merton (1973) predicted in his ICAPM, the investment opportunities may vary with time, suggesting a conditional risk-return relationship As He et al (1996), Ferson and Harvey (1999), and Ghysels (1998) have pointed out, a lot of conditional asset-pricing models fail in their empirical performance and hardly capture the beta risk dynamics. Though past studies have tried to combine the multi-factor model with a regime switching framework, none of them have systematically investigated the time-variations in both, risk factors excess returns and risk loadings (known as betas). Fama-French factors can proxy the latent risk factors in the Chinese stock market, we focus on the two typical asset-pricing models (i.e., CAPM and Fama–French three-factor model) and put them under Markov regime switches. We study two typical multi-factor asset-pricing models under the Markov regime switches for the Chinese stock market. The results may shed light on the state-dependent risk-return relationship
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