Beta-Anomaly: Evidence from the Indian Equity Market

The study investigates the existence of beta-anomaly in the Indian equity market. A growing body of literature shows that financial markets do not reward the risk (defined in terms of standard deviation or market beta). These results (known as ‘low-risk anomaly’ and ‘low-beta-anomaly’) are quite puzzling from the theoretical perspective. This study presents an empirical test of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) in the Indian equity market to examine the existence of low risk/low beta anomaly. The study covers 650 actively traded stocks for a period of 189 months from July 2002 to March 2018, and the Fama–MacBeth procedure has been used for testing CAPM. The beta-shorted portfolios are formulated using both equal and value-weights. The results of the study were found robust after controlling for outliers and correcting the bias in standard errors, as suggested by Petersen (in Rev Financ Stud 22(1):435–480, 2009). We confirm the presence of ‘low-beta-anomaly’ in India. A non-linear relationship was found between CAPM beta and expected returns. This relationship follows a quadratic function, where expected returns initially increase with beta and then start declining, resulting in the negative risk premium for high-beta portfolios.