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Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) advocates that expected return has a linear proportional relationship with beta (and subsequently volatility). As such, the higher the systematic risk of a security the higher the CAPM expected return. However, empirical results have hardly supported this view...

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Main Author: Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
Other Authors: Bradfield, D
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Statistical Sciences 2016
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access_status_str Open Access
author Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
author2 Bradfield, D
author_browse Bradfield, D
Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
author_facet Bradfield, D
Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
author_sort Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
collection Thesis
description The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) advocates that expected return has a linear proportional relationship with beta (and subsequently volatility). As such, the higher the systematic risk of a security the higher the CAPM expected return. However, empirical results have hardly supported this view as argued as early as Black (1972). Instead, an anomaly has been evidenced across a multitude of developed and emerging markets, where portfolios constructed to have lower volatility have outperformed their higher volatility counterparts as found by Baker and Haugen (2012). This result has been found to exist in most Equity markets globally. In the South African market the studies of Khuzwayo (2011), Panulo (2014) and Oladele (2014) focused on establishing whether low volatility portfolios had outperformed market-cap weighted portfolios in the South African market. While they found this to be the case, it is important to understand if this is truly an anomaly or just a result of prevailing market conditions that have rewarded lower volatility stocks over the back-test period. As such, those conditions might not exist in the future and low volatility portfolios might then underperform. This research does not aim to show, yet again, the existence of this 'anomaly'; instead the aim is to dissect if there is any theoretical backing for low volatility portfolios to outperform high volatility portfolios. If this can be uncovered, then it should help one understand if the 'anomaly' truly exists and also if it can be expected to continue into the future.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:10.259Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20256 Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi Bradfield, D Statistics (Operations Research) The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) advocates that expected return has a linear proportional relationship with beta (and subsequently volatility). As such, the higher the systematic risk of a security the higher the CAPM expected return. However, empirical results have hardly supported this view as argued as early as Black (1972). Instead, an anomaly has been evidenced across a multitude of developed and emerging markets, where portfolios constructed to have lower volatility have outperformed their higher volatility counterparts as found by Baker and Haugen (2012). This result has been found to exist in most Equity markets globally. In the South African market the studies of Khuzwayo (2011), Panulo (2014) and Oladele (2014) focused on establishing whether low volatility portfolios had outperformed market-cap weighted portfolios in the South African market. While they found this to be the case, it is important to understand if this is truly an anomaly or just a result of prevailing market conditions that have rewarded lower volatility stocks over the back-test period. As such, those conditions might not exist in the future and low volatility portfolios might then underperform. This research does not aim to show, yet again, the existence of this 'anomaly'; instead the aim is to dissect if there is any theoretical backing for low volatility portfolios to outperform high volatility portfolios. If this can be uncovered, then it should help one understand if the 'anomaly' truly exists and also if it can be expected to continue into the future. 2016-07-08T10:40:37Z 2016-07-08T10:40:37Z 2015 Master Thesis Masters MCom http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20256 eng application/pdf Department of Statistical Sciences Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Statistics (Operations Research)
Khuzwayo, Bhekinkosi
Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
title_full Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
title_fullStr Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
title_full_unstemmed Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
title_short Understanding the low volatility anomaly in the South African equity market
title_sort understanding the low volatility anomaly in the south african equity market
topic Statistics (Operations Research)
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20256
work_keys_str_mv AT khuzwayobhekinkosi understandingthelowvolatilityanomalyinthesouthafricanequitymarket