Modern Portfolio Theory - Comparison With Arbitrage Pricing Theory

Comparison With Arbitrage Pricing Theory

The SML and CAPM are often contrasted with the arbitrage pricing theory (APT), which holds that the expected return of a financial asset can be modeled as a linear function of various macro-economic factors, where sensitivity to changes in each factor is represented by a factor specific beta coefficient.

The APT is less restrictive in its assumptions: it allows for a statistical model of asset returns, and assumes that each investor will hold a unique portfolio with its own particular array of betas, as opposed to the identical "market portfolio". Unlike the CAPM, the APT, however, does not itself reveal the identity of its priced factors - the number and nature of these factors is likely to change over time and between economies.

Read more about this topic:  Modern Portfolio Theory

Famous quotes containing the words comparison with, comparison and/or theory:

    Intolerance respecting other people’s religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people’s art.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed.
    David Hume (1711–1776)

    There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.
    Albert Einstein (1879–1955)