A manager using an asset pricing model to measure the discount rate for
a project must estimate the project's sensitivities to the model's risk factors.
Table 2 shows estimates of CAPM and three-factor risk loadings for 48 valueweight
industries. The industries are defined with the goal of having a manageable
number of distinct industries that cover all NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ
stocks. (See Appendix A.) Because the sample of firms on Compustat is rather
limited in earlier years, the sample period is July 1963 to December 1994.
The full-period risk loadings in Table 2 seem to be estimated precisely. The
average standard error for the CAPM market slopes is only 0.04. The average
standard errors for the market, SMB, and HM L slopes in the three-factor model