This article empirically test the lower partial moments models, Sortino,
Upside Potential Ratio, Omega and Kappa, comparing them with the traditional
CAPM, for listed shares of Ibovespa and Dow Jones index. These two classes
of models are distinguished in terms of investors' profile assumptions and
risk measurement. While the CAPM considers only the first two moments of the
returns distribution, assuming investor's quadratic utility function
(defined in terms of mean/expected returns and variance/risk), the other
measures take into account higher moments of returns distributions
(assimetry and curtosis). The Hansen-Jagannathan distance, which estimates
the Stochastic Discount Factor (SDF) measurement error generated by each
model, showed a distinction of the models in the two markets. While the CAPM
performed better for Dow Jones shares, the lower partial moments models
presented better results for Ibovespa, suggesting an advantage in the use of
such models in markets with lower liquidity, fat tails (greater probability
of extreme events) and greater asymmetry.