At it's core, the CAPM is a single factor linear model. In light of
the general ustility and wide use of single factor model, all
functions in the CAPM suite will also be available with SFM (single factor model)
prefixes.
The CAPM provides a justification for passive or index investing by positing
that assets that are not on the efficient frontier will either rise or lower
in price until they are on the efficient frontier of the market portfolio.
The CAPM Risk Premium on an investment is the measure of how much the
asset's performance differs from the risk free rate. Negative Risk Premium
generally indicates that the investment is a bad investment, and the money
should be allocated to the risk free asset or to a different asset with a
higher risk premium.
The Capital Market Line relates the excess expected return on an efficient
market portfolio to it's Risk. The slope of the CML is the Sharpe Ratio for
the market portfolio. The Security Market line is constructed by calculating
the line of Risk Premium over CAPM.beta
. For the benchmark
asset this will be 1 over the risk premium of the benchmark asset. The CML
also describes the only path allowed by the CAPM to a portfolio that
outperforms the efficient frontier: it describes the line of reward/risk
that a leveraged portfolio will occupy. So, according to CAPM, no portfolio
constructed of the same assets can lie above the CML.
Probably the most complete criticism of CAPM in actual practice (as opposed
to structural or theory critiques) is that it posits a market equilibrium,
but is most often used only in a partial equilibrium setting, for example by
using the S\&P 500 as the benchmark asset. A better method of using and
testing the CAPM would be to use a general equilibrium model that took
global assets from all asset classes into consideration.
Chapter 7 of Ruppert(2004) gives an extensive overview of CAPM, its
assumptions and deficiencies.
SFM.RiskPremium
is the premium returned to the investor over the
risk free asset
$$\overline{(R_{a}-R_{f})}$$
SFM.CML
calculates the expected return of the asset against the
benchmark Capital Market Line
SFM.CML.slope
calculates the slope of the Capital Market Line for
looking at how a particular asset compares to the CML
SFM.SML.slope
calculates the slope of the Security Market Line for
looking at how a particular asset compares to the SML created by the
benchmark