The Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model Tests and Profitability and Investment Premiums : Evidence from Pakistan

Using an extensive sample of the Pakistani stock market over the 2003–2016 period, this paper is the first to evaluate and compare the performance of four most popular factor pricing models: the Fama and French three-factor model, Carhart’s four-factor model, the five-factor model proposed by Fama and French, and the six-factor model that adds momentum to the five-factor model. We also test different nested models and find that the five-factor model best explains the returns of anomaly portfolios and outperforms the other models. We note that the profitability factor significantly improves the description of average returns, whereas factor spanning tests show that the value and momentum factors are redundant for the Pakistani stock market. Our results are robust to alternative factor definitions, formation of test assets, and across sub-periods