Abstract The current study looked at the relationship between risk free rate and stock market return. A five year monthly basis time series data from 2003-2007 of T-bills and KSE-100 index were taken for research study. For the analysis of data, simple regression model approach was applied. Stock market return was taken as dependent variable whereas Risk free rates as independent variables. Also, Pearson Correlation Matrix was also obtained through correlation model. The results suggested that risk free rates had no effect on dependant variable. Furthermore, no correlation between risk free rate and stock market return was found. Consequently, a bivariate relationship cannot exist between risk free rate and stock market return. A multiple regression model of the risk free rate and stock market return exhibits a strong autocorrelation, indicating that the stock market return is a function of more variable than risk free rate. 1. Introduction: The risk free rate is the return on the security or a portfolio of securities that is free from default risk. Theoretically, the return on a zero-beta portfolio is the best estimate of the risk free rate. The CAPM predicts the relation ship risk of an asset and its expected return. This relationship is very useful in two important ways. First, it produces a benchmark for evaluating various investments. Second, it helps us to make an informed guess about the return that can be expected from an asset that has not been traded in the market. Risk free rate is an increasingly essential ingredient of every return computed on financial assets. The security market line (SML) predicts a simple linear relationship between expected return and standard deviation while capital market line (CML) contributes a relationship between risk free rate and straight line emanating from risk free rate(Rf) to tangential to the efficient frontier. Investors combine their uncorrelated securities help to lesson the risk of a portfolio. They want to know the reasonable level of risk reduction about their portfolios. Research studies look at what happens to portfolio risk as randomly selected stocks are combined to form equally weighted portfolios. When we begin with single stock, the risk of the portfolio is only the standard deviation of that one stock. As the number of randomly selected stocks held in the portfolio is increased, the total risk of the portfolio is reduced. The total risk of comprise systematic risk and unsystematic risk. Systematic risk is due to risk factors that affect the overall market- such as changes in the nation’s economy, world energy situation, world political and economic situation. This kind of risk is not diversifiable even the well-diversified portfolio expose to this type of risk. The second component, unsystematic risk, is unique to particular company. It is independent to all factors regarding systematic risk. Investors always want to be compensated for taking systematic risk. They should not, however, expect the market to provide any extra compensation for bearing avoidable, diversifiable, unsystematic risk. It is this logic that lies behind capital asset pricing model (CAPM).(责任编辑:【蜜月时光】海外婚礼婚摄) |