Question

2. Consider how the pricing model would work for a job that was half the acres but half the distance from his farm.

Answer 1

Pricing Models Definition

Price is one of the key variables in the marketing mix. There are four general pricing approaches that companies use to set an appropriate price for their products and services: cost-based pricing, value-based pricing, value pricing and competition-based pricing (Kotler and Armstrong, 2009). The cost of production sets the lower limit while the upper limit is set by consumer perception about the product/service (McCarthy et al., 2001). Companies must also consider competitor prices to find the most suitable price between these two extremes (Cravens and Piercy, 2008).

Pricing your creative and design services effectively is a difficult business. After you have calculated your shop rate, you have a baseline number for all of your pricing calculations. Using this number, you can determine what it takes to complete a project. To do so, you'll use one of seven different pricing methods.

Whether you're a freelancer or large agency, there is no single 'right way' to price your services. Instead, look for the 'ideal way' to price. Most companies will use two or three different methods.

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) describes the relationship between systematic risk and expected return for assets, particularly stocks. CAPM is widely used throughout finance for pricing risky securities and generating expected returns for assets given the risk of those assets and cost of capital.

There are several assumptions behind the CAPM formula that have been shown not to hold in reality. Modern financial theory rests on two assumptions: (1) securities markets are very competitive and efficient (that is, relevant information about the companies is quickly and universally distributed and absorbed); (2) these markets are dominated by rational, risk-averse investors, who seek to maximize satisfaction from returns on their investments.1

Despite these issues, the CAPM formula is still widely used because it is simple and allows for easy comparisons of investment alternatives.

Including beta in the formula assumes that risk can be measured by a stock’s price volatility. However, price movements in both directions are not equally risky. The look-back period to determine a stock’s volatility is not standard because stock returns (and risk) are not normally distributed.

The CAPM also assumes that the risk-free rate will remain constant over the discounting period. Assume in the previous example that the interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds rose to 5% or 6% during the 10-year holding period. An increase in the risk-free rate also increases the cost of the capital used in the investment and could make the stock look overvalued.

The market portfolio that is used to find the market risk premium is only a theoretical value and is not an asset that can be purchased or invested in as an alternative to the stock. Most of the time, investors will use a major stock index, like the S&P 500, to substitute for the market, which is an imperfect comparison.

The most serious critique of the CAPM is the assumption that future cash flows can be estimated for the discounting process. If an investor could estimate the future return of a stock with a high level of accuracy, the CAPM would not be necessary

Practical Value of the CAPM

Considering the critiques of the CAPM and the assumptions behind its use in portfolio construction, it might be difficult to see how it could be useful. However, using the CAPM as a tool to evaluate the reasonableness of future expectations or to conduct comparisons can still have some value.

Imagine an advisor who has proposed adding a stock to a portfolio with a $100 share price. The advisor uses the CAPM to justify the price with a discount rate of 13%. The advisor’s investment manager can take this information and compare it to the company’s past performance and its peers to see if a 13% return is a reasonable expectation.

Assume in this example that the peer group’s performance over the last few years was a little better than 10% while this stock had consistently underperformed with 9% returns. The investment manager shouldn’t take the advisor’s recommendation without some justification for the increased expected return.

An investor can also use the concepts from the CAPM and efficient frontier to evaluate their portfolio or individual stock performance compared to the rest of the market. For example, assume that an investor’s portfolio has returned 10% per year for the last three years with a standard deviation of returns (risk) of 10%. However, the market averages have returned 10% for the last three years with a risk of 8%.

The investor could use this observation to reevaluate how their portfolio is constructed and which holdings may not be on the SML. This could explain why the investor’s portfolio is to the right of the CML. If the holdings that are either dragging on returns or have increased the portfolio’s risk disproportionately can be identified, the investor can make changes to improve returns.

Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) Summary

The CAPM uses the principles of Modern Portfolio Theory to determine if a security is fairly valued. It relies on assumptions about investor behaviors, risk and return distributions, and market fundamentals that don’t match reality. However, the underlying concepts of CAPM and the associated efficient frontier can help investors understand the relationship between expected risk and reward as they make better decisions about adding securities to a portfolio.