Empirical Proof of the CAPM with Higher Order Co-moments in Nigerian Stock Market: The Conditional and Unconditional Based Tests

This study examines the significance of the risk factors in the CAPM with higher order co-moments using a two-pass methodological technique of Fama and Macbeth. Stock prices of 53 companies out of the 207 listed in Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for a sample period January 2003 to December 2011 are analyzed. The study particularly augments the model using unconditional and conditional information. The unconditional test reveals that only the co-skewness risk is priced while the covariance and co-skewness demonstrate weak relationship with asset returns; while the conditional test shows that all the risk factors in the up-market are not priced but the covariance and co-skewness risk play significant role in explaining asset returns in the down-market phase. However, the conditional information has improved the descriptive ability of the model.