Expected and Realized Stock Returns: Evidence from India

Markowitz Portfolio theory is based on the expected return and risk but investors are more interested in realized return. The considerations, expected return as realized return and variance as investment risk, of Markowitz’s mean – variance model enable the researchers or scholars to further explore on the validity of Markowitz theory. The present study makes an attempt to unfold a new idea in investment scenario where Markowitz theory is empirically tested on realized return and risk as well as on realized return and expected return in the context of India. The findings show that a large variation in Expected Return is explained by the risk (Market Beta) alone and this risk and Expected return are significantly negatively related. However, the risk (Market Beta) and Realized return are insignificantly related. Further, a very low variation in the Realized (Actual) Return is explained by the Expected Return and the Expected Return and the Realised Return are insignificantly positively related. Thus, it is considered that the Markowitz model is not possible to implement in the real world even though the relationship holds good. This study acts as one of the guiding tools for investors in transforming their new age investment philosophy.