The market risk premium is one of the most important parameters in finance. Its value and the ways to calculate a risk premium for the market is a widely debated subject. This thesis examines numerous ways of calculating a risk premium for the Swedish market with regard to how good an estimation they make of a real risk premium. Estimations based on historical periods ranging from 20 to 85 years is calculated as well as a premium based on forward-looking estimates. The real risk premium is solved out for a selection of companies and an index with the help of CAPM. An examination of these estimates leads to the conclusion that historical estimates of a risk premium may be outdated. The implication of this is that more effort should be put into examining a risk premium based on forward-looking estimates. In this context a thorough analysis of fundamentals should be added into the calculation.

[pt] Na década de 1990, diversos países, inclusive o Brasil, entre 1996 e 2003, iniciaram a reestruturação de seus setores elétricos e criaram mercados livres para negociação de energia. O crescimento desses mercados tem demandado a adaptação de instrumentos financeiros de gestão de riscos e retornos as suas especificidades. No Brasil, o mercado tem, ainda, uma estrutura de balcão desorganizado e descentralizado, o que dificulta seu aprendizado. Os contratos a termo de energia elétrica, negociados bilateralmente, no país, são o principal instrumento para a mitigação de riscos e a avaliação de investimentos. Nesse contexto, o objetivo deste estudo é compreender melhor a dinâmica dos preços a termo de energia elétrica praticados no Brasil. Assim, é proposto um método para construção de curvas a termo com base apenas em informações de mercado e feita uma primeira aplicação dessa metodologia. Alguns indícios ficaram, então, evidentes sobre o comportamento do mercado brasileiro a termo de energia elétrica: configuração de contango em alguns períodos, presença de elevados prêmios de risco e aderência apenas relativa dos preços a termo às expectativas de futuros preços à vista. Estudos realizados a partir de mercados estruturados de energia elétrica suportam essas evidências. / [en] In the 1990s, several countries, including Brazil, between 1996 and 2003, began to restructure their electricity sectors and established free markets for energy trading. The growth of these markets has required the adaptation of financial instruments for risk management and return to their specifications. In Brazil, the market has still a disorganized and decentralized OTC (over the counter market) structure, which hinders their learning. The forward contracts for electricity, negotiated bilaterally, in the country, are the primary instrument to mitigate risks and evaluate investments. In this context, the objective of this study is to better understand the dynamics of the forward price of electricity negotiated in Brazil. Thus, we propose a method to construct the forward curve based only on market information and made a first application of this methodology. Some clues were then evident on the behavior of the Brazilian forward market of electricity: contango set in certain periods, presence of high risk premiums and only partial adherence of forward prices on the expectations of future spot prices. Studies based on structured electricity markets support these evidences.

[pt] Tipicamente, a literatura de curva de juros assume que taxas de juros para horizontes longos são compostas por expectativas de taxas de juros curtas que devem vigorar nesse horizonte longo e/ou um prêmio de risco. O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar evidência de que o peso relativo de um componente expectacional vis-à-vis um componente de prêmio de risco pode depender do tempo e do estado da economia. Ademais, a probabilidade de um Regime da Teoria das Expectativas mostra-se relacionado ao ciclo de negócios. Ainda, os resultados indicam que ao se incorporar a probabilidade destes regimes, é possível intensficar o poder preditivo do diferencial entre os juros longos e o curto tanto para excesso de retornos quanto para atividade econômica. / [en] The yield curve literature typically decomposes long-term interest rates into expected future short-term rates and a risk premium. We show that the relative importance of the expectational component vis-à-vis the risk premium component can be time-varying and state-dependent. Further, the likelihood of an Expectations Hypothesis (EH) State has a clear relation to the business cycle. Moreover, our results indicate that incorporating the probability of these EH states boosts the predictive power of the benchmark yield curve measure, the term spread, both for future excess bond returns and economic activity.

[pt] Esta tese é composta por dois ensaios sobre finanças empíricas. O primeiro se concentra nos mercados de câmbio e apresenta medidas de mudanças na inclinação da estrutura de curto prazo das taxas de juros para os EUA e outros países de G10, usando contratos de futuros de 3 e 6 meses. Essas mudanças na inclinação têm impacto imediato nos retornos da moeda e também forte efeito retardado nas semanas seguintes, o que implica que as moedas são previsíveis tanto dentro quanto fora da amostra. Os investidores que condicionam na inclinação para negociar taticamente uma carteira comprada em moedas G10 contra o Dólar americano melhoram os índices de Sharpe para 0,4-0,9, em relação a 0,15 de uma estratégia de buy and hold. Uma carteira de moeda neutra em dólares que classifica as moedas dos países do G10 de acordo com a inclinação no cross-section também oferece índices de Sharpe mais altos do que outras estratégias de moeda como o carry trade. Essas descobertas são compatíveis com uma reação defasada do mercado de câmbio às informações sobre taxas de juros. O segundo ensaio propõe uma nova medida que usa apenas informações de dispersão cross-section de betas do modelo CAPM para prever retornos agregados de mercado para os EUA. Esta escolha de preditores é baseada em argumentos teóricos simples de que as medidas associadas à dispersão dos betas do CAPM, em alguns cenários, devem ser relacionadas aos retornos futuros de mercado esperados. Essas medidas de dispersão de fato prevêem o prêmio de risco de mercado em vários horizontes e fornecem alto poder preditivo dentro e fora da amostra. O R2 fora da amostra atinge até 10 porcento na frequência anual (0,7 porcento mensal) e são robustos a diferentes janelas de estimação. Ao contrário da maioria das medidas encontradas na literatura, a nossa não é baseado em preço ou valuation ratios. Nossas medidas variam com o ciclo econômico e se correlacionam com outras variáveis de previsão comumente usadas, como razões de dividendo-preço e consumo-riqueza, mas fornecem poder explicativo acima e além dos preditores padrão. Nossos resultados fornecem evidências adicionais de que a dispersão dos betas ao longo do tempo é função da variação temporal do prêmio de risco de mercado. / [en] The thesis is composed of two essays on empirical finance. The first focuses on FX markets and presents measures of interest rates shortterm structure slope changes for the US and other G10 countries using 3- and 6-month futures contracts. These changes in slopes have immediate impact on currency returns but also a strong delayed effect over the following weeks, implying that currencies are predictable both in and outof-sample. Investors that condition on slope to tactically trade a long G10 portfolio improve Sharpe ratios to 0.4-0.9, relative to 0.15 for a buy-andhold strategy. A dollar-neutral currency portfolio that sorts G10 country currencies on the cross-section slope also deliver higher Sharpe ratios than other currency strategies, such as the carry trade. These findings are compatible with delayed currency market reaction to information in interest rates. The second essay proposes a novel measure that solely use crosssectional dispersion information on CAPM betas to forecast aggregate market returns for the US. This choice of predictors is based on simple theoretical arguments that measures associated with the dispersion of CAPM betas, in some settings, should be related with expected future market returns. We find that these dispersion measures do indeed forecast market risk premium over multiple horizons and deliver high in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power: out-of-sample R2 reaches up to 10 percent at the annual frequency (0.7 percent monthly) and are robust to different estimation windows. Unlike most measures in the literature, ours is not a price- or valuation-based ratio. Our approach is also an alternative to models that use the cross-section of valuation ratios to infer the conditional market risk premium. Our measures vary with the business cycle and correlate with other commonly used forecasting variable such as dividend-price or consumption-wealth ratios, but they provide explanatory power above and beyond the standard predictors. Our findings provide additional evidence that the betas dispersion across time is a function of time varying risk premium.

Diploma thesis covers the topic about different attitudes to DCF valuation. The first part is an introduction into CAPM theory and a multifactor French-Fama model. This part also indicates different views on financial assets and analyzes an issue of setting discount rates, especially the risk-free rate and equity risk premium. The second part of this paper applies the theory into valuation of Microsoft, GAP and Telefónica O2. There are elaborated forecasts of the financial statements and free cash flows (FCFCE, FCFU), the discount rate composition and analyses of the factors HML and SMB. At the end, there are performed various valuations, which results are discussed together with a development of real market prices.

The work is focussed on the determination of capital structure in its market values, determination of the cost of non-own capital, and determination of the cost of equity, primarily by using the CAPM method. In terms of the CAPM procedure the work deals with the main parameters required by the method, such as risk-free yield rate, risk market premium, and beta coefficient. Furthermore, attention is given to modifications resulting from the inaccuracies of the CAPM method to make the method correspond as much as possible with the actual yield and risk of shares historically achieved at the capital market, and likewise to modifications needed when applying the CAPM method to the valuation of Czech businesses. The recommended procedure of determining the market discount rate for the valuation of an enterprise is applied on an example. Data obtained from the capital market of the Czech Republic are used to calculate the risk premium of the Czech capital market and beta coefficient of selected ten shares out of the Czech capital market, giving an assessment of the possibility of using the data obtained from the Czech capital market for the valuation of businesses incorporated in the Czech Republic.

[pt] O presente trabalho traz 6 diferentes técnicas de previsão para a variação mensal do Índice da Produção Industrial americana em 3 ambientes diferentes totalizando 18 modelos. No primeiro ambiente foram usados como variáveis explicativas a própria defasagem da variação mensal do Índice da produção industrial e outras 55 variáveis de mercado e de expectativa tais quais retornos setoriais, prêmio de risco de mercado, volatilidade implícita, prêmio de taxa de juros (corporate e longo prazo), sentimento do consumidor e índice de incerteza. No segundo ambiente foi usado à data base do FRED com 130 variáveis econômicas como variáveis explicativas. No terceiro ambiente foram usadas as variáveis mais relevantes do ambiente 1 e do ambiente 2. Observa-se no trabalho uma melhora em prever o IP contra um modelo AR e algumas interpretações a respeito do comportamento da economia americana nos últimos 45 anos (importância de setores econômicos, períodos de incerteza, mudanças na resposta a prêmio de risco, volatilidade e taxa de juros). / [en] This thesis presents 6 different forecasting techniques for the monthly variation of the American Industrial Production Index in 3 different environments, totaling 18 models. In the first environment, the lags of the monthly variation of the industrial production index and other 55 market and expectation variables such as sector returns, market risk premium, implied volatility, and interest rate risk premiums (corporate premium and long term premium), consumer sentiment and uncertainty index. In the second environment was used the FRED data base with 130 economic variables as explanatory variables. In the third environment, the most relevant variables of environment 1 and environment 2 were used. It was observed an improvement in predicting IP against an AR model and some interpretations regarding the behavior of the American economy in the last 45 years (importance of sectors, uncertainty periods, and changes in response to risk premium, volatility and interest rate).

已實現投資報酬率與無風險利率之差、被稱為超額報酬，而股票的預期報酬率超過無風險利率的部份則為股票風險溢酬，是許多資產評價模型的重要依據，例如資本資產定價模型。有不同的理論架構解釋說明風險溢酬值，例如；股票風險溢酬的迷思、短期損失的憎惡、生還存留因素和回歸與偏離平均值等等。 研究台灣股市的超額報酬與股票風險溢酬，有助投資大眾和企業理性面對股市的預期報酬和風險，對台股才有合理的期望報酬值。分析1967年迄2003年的台灣金融市場，計算過去37年長期的幾何平均年報酬率，以臺灣證券交易所發行量加權股價指數為台股市場報酬率，已實現台股實質年報酬率為6.71%。無風險報酬率使用第一銀行的一年期定期存款利率，實質台幣存款年利率為3.07%，消費者物價指數年增率則為4.80%。以年資料計算的台股實質超額報酬，算術和幾何值分別為12.48%和3.63%(年)，計算月資料算術平均和幾何平均值分別為0.77%和0.25%(月)。過去37年長期的台股超額報酬現象未較歐美市場的情況更加明顯，也比一般市場的預期報酬率低。 因資料取得的限制、台股的理論超額報酬方面，1991年迄2003年的近十三年來，經固定股利成長模式和盈餘成長模式的兩種計算方式，台股的實質超額報酬分別為 0.6%和-4.3%，此時期台股的投資報酬率比起台幣存款並不突出、且是低超額報酬。同期的已實現的實質超額報酬值；算術平均1.69%和幾何平均-3.35%。評估目前台股風險溢酬，將十分接近過去37年長期歷史資料得到的超額報酬數值，算術年均值為12.48%(年)和0.77%(月)，幾何平均分別為3.63%(年)和0.25%(月)，低風險溢酬是當前台灣股票市場的一般現象。 / The difference between the observed historical investment return and the risk-free interest rate is the excess return. The equity risk premium, ERP is the expected rate of return on the aggregate stock market in excess of the rate of risk-free security. ERP is one of important factor of many asset-pricing models, including Capital Asset Pricing Model, CAPM. There were many theories and factors to explain the equity risk premium; equity premium puzzle, myopic loss aversion, survivorship bias, mean reversion & aversion and etc. Studying the value of Taiwan equity excess return and risk premium is fundamental for investors and institutions evaluating the expected market investment return and risk. Analyzing the data from year 1967 to 2003 for thirty-seven years long holding period, Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index as Taiwan stock market return, the realized real return was 6.71%. One-year bank time deposit rate as NT dollars risk-free asset rate and real interest rate was 3.07% and consumer price index, CPI annual growth rate was 4.80%. The historical real yearly excess return was 12.45% for arithmetic mean and 3.63% geometric mean; the historical real monthly excess return was 0.77% for arithmetic mean and 0.25% geometric mean. Taiwan realized equity excess returns were not higher than the returns in the developed countries and were also lower than the market's expectation. Due to the limits of available data, the theoretical equity excess returns that were calculated on two theoretical models; Constant Growth Dividend Discount Model (dividend yield model) and earnings yield model were 0.6% and -4.3% from year 1991 to year 2003. Comparing the same period of historical realized excess returns of 1.69% for arithmetic mean and -3.35% geometric mean, Taiwan stock market returns were not spectacular. The current equity risk premium of Taiwan stock market is low and should be near the level of the long historical realized equity excess return.