We demonstrate that the estimates of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) parameters significantly differ across samples, which are based on different days of the week (representing different seasons). Our evidence suggests that the “noise” in the data is not an issue. We also show that...

This paper demonstrates that the factors based on typical procedures that employ sorting by characteristics (including size and book-to-market, among others) can create a good mechanical fit in the regressions of portfolio returns. Such factors are approximately linear functions of the sorted...

We show that in the presence of non-zero pricing errors, the Fama–MacBeth (FM) cross-sectional regression test is very likely to either reject the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) when it (almost) holds or accept the model when it grossly fails. We investigate the case when pricing errors...