5.1 Conclusions
The Fama and French Three-Factor Model is found to outperform the CAPM on the Swedish
market. FF3FM gives higher explanatory power of the returns than the CAPM in two market
conditions; for the whole sample period of 2005-2010 and for the whole time period of 2005-
2010, with the period of July 2007 to June 2008 excluded. In the latter setting a time period
characterized by economic downturn and financial turmoil is excluded and the explanatory
power increases substantially for both models. With the 2007-2008 period included the risk
premium of the book-to-market factor, HML, is negative. This means that low BE/ME
companies outperform high BE/ME companies in our full sample period, in contrast to what
is expected by the FF3FM. Furthermore, the R² values contain a wide spread from the lowest
to the highest value when the downturn period is included. With the 2007-2008 period
excluded the HML risk premium is positive and the spread of the R² values decreases.
Consequently the FF3FM did not work well in a time of crisis in the Swedish market. The
FF3FM is found to be a good estimator of the cost of equity on the Swedish market during our
time period. We would recommend using the FF3FM over the CAPM for estimation of the
cost of equity on the Swedish market.