The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Capital markets provide a function which facilitates the buying and selling of long-term financial securities to increase liquidity and their value, Watson & Head (2013). Hence, the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) explains the relationship that exists with the prices of the capital market securities, where no individual can beat the market by regularly buying securities at a lower price than it should be. This means that in order to be an efficient market prices of securities will have to fairly and fully reflect all available information, Fama (1970). Consequently, Watson & Head (2013) believe that market efficiency refers to the speed and quality of how share price adjusts to new information. Nevertheless, the testing of the efficient markets has led to the recognition of three different forms of efficiency in which explains how information available is used within the market. In this essay, the EMH will be analysed; testing of EMH will show that the model does provide strong evidence to explain share behaviour but also anomalies will be discussed that refutes the EMH. Therefore, a judgment will be made to see which structure explains the efficient market and whether there are some implications with the EMH, as a whole.

It is believed that Efficient Market Theory is based upon some fallacies and it does not provide strong grounds of whatever that it proposes. More importantly the Efficient Market theory is perceived to be too subjective in its definition and details and because of this it is close to impossible to accommodate this theory into a meaningful and explicit financial model that can actually assist investors in making the investment decisions (Andresso-O’Callaghan, B., 2007).

As Chapter 10 questions, if further evidence continues to surface that capital markets do not always behave in accordance with the efficient market hypothesis, then should we reject the research that has embraced the EMH as a fundamental assumption? In this regard we can return to earlier chapters of this book in which we emphasised that theories are abstractions of reality. Capital markets are made of individuals and as such it would not (or perhaps, should not) be surprising to find that the

There is a sense of complexity today that has led many to believe the individual investor has little chance of competing with professional brokers and investment firms. However, Malkiel states this is a major misconception as he explains in his book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". What does a random walk mean? The random walk means in terms of the stock market that, "short term changes in stock prices cannot be predicted". So how does a rational investor determine which stocks to purchase to maximize returns? Chapter 1 begins by defining and determining the difference in investing and speculating. Investing defined by Malkiel is the method of "purchasing assets to gain profit in the form of reasonably

sider BACKGROUND Efficient market theory examines how accurately stock prices signal resource allocation alloc and fully reflect all available information. Fama (1970) introduced the efficient market hypothesis stating there are three forms of efficiency: weak, semi strong, and strong. A market semi-strong, that incorporates all historical information is said to be weak form efficient, while one that responds to all publicly available informatio is semi-strong efficient. In a semiinformation -strong efficient market, prices instantly change to reflect publicly available information. A strong form market, strong responds to all information, both public and private. The hypothesis claims that achieving above average returns on a risk adjusted basis is impossible (Fama 1970). (Fama, The lowest level of market efficiency, weak form, states that the market only reacts to historical information. This means that no one can earn above normal returns based on published historical information; however, the market does not quickly react to new public or private information. It may be possible then, in a weak form efficient market, to obtain abnormal returns form using either new publicly available or private insider information (Fama 1970). (Fama, A semi-strong form market is more efficient that a weak form, as it reacts to publicly strong available new information quickly and share prices adjust to reflect the market’s reaction. share Obtaining

information in the previous prices. In short, they simply imply that in the long run, no one

Efficient Market Hypothesis has been controversial issues among researcher for decades. Until now, there is no united conclusion whether capital markets are efficiency or not. In 1960s, Fama (1970) believed that market is very efficient despite there are some trivial contradicted tests. Until recently, both empirical and theatrical efficient market hypothesis was being disputed by behavior finance economist. They have found that investor have psychological biases and found evidences that some stocks outperform other stocks. Moreover, there are evidences prove that market are not efficient for instance financial crisis, stock market bubble, and some investor can earn abnormal return which happening regularly in stock markets all over the world. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that Efficient Market Hypothesis in stock (capital) markets does not exist in the real world by proofing four outstanding unrealistic conditions that make market efficient: information is widely available and cost-free, investor are rational, independent and unbiased, There is no liquidity problem in stock market, and finally stock prices has no pattern.

The weak-form efficiency cannot explain January effect. In semi-strong-form efficient market, to test this hypothesis, researchers look at the adjustment of share prices to public announcements such as earnings and dividend announcements, splits, takeovers and repurchases. As time goes, later tests tend to be not supportive to EMH. For instance, semi-strong-form efficiency cannot explain the pricing/earning effect. In strong-form efficiency, the highest level of market efficiency, Fama (1991) pointed out the immeasurability of market efficiency and suggested that it must be tested jointly with an equilibrium model of expected. However, perfect efficiency is an unrealistic benchmark that is unlikely to hold in practice.

The Random Walk Model is a different paradigm of the Hypothesis of Efficient Markets. This model was initially examined by Kendall (1953). The model states that the price fluctuations of stocks do not depend on each other and have the same probability distribution. The theory explains that stock price change randomly and investors are unable to predict stock prices. The model is linked to the belief that markets are extremely efficient and that investors cannot beat or predict the market because stock prices reflect all available information and as the new information

Samuelson has offered the dictum that the stock market is ‘‘micro efficient’’ but ‘‘macro inefficient.’’ That is, the efficient markets hypothesis works much better for individual stocks than it does for the aggregate stock market. In this article, we review a strand of evidence in recent literature that supports Samuelson’s dictum and present one simple test, based on a regression and a simple scatter diagram, that

Market efficiency tests include weak, semi-strong and strong three forms. They assume that financial markets are "informationally efficient", or that prices of trading assets, already reflect all known information and therefore are unbiased in the sense that they reflect the collective beliefs of all investors about future prospects. The weak form test is based on the past information and public available information for semi-strong while strong form covers not only the public but also the private information.

Although the notion of market efficiency has- albeit rudimentarily- been dealt with since the 16th century , it was only when Eugene Fama published his PhD and his subsequent article Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work in 1970 that the Efficient Market Hypothesis (hereafter EMH) was established. The fundamental argument offered by EMH proposes that the multiplicity and interaction of fully rational economic actors within a market will lead to the elimination of disparities between market prices and actual values and allow the former to randomly fluctuate around the

Fama(1970) presented 3 forms of market efficiency including weak form , semi- strong form and strong form. These forms represent respectively level of information that cannot be employed to give prediction on future prices ( past information, public information and private information ). At weak form of market efficiency, Fama argued that past data of stocks are almost useless to predict future prices of stocks. However, recent evidences have claimed that stock market was even inefficient at weak form. For example, the evidence of long term reversal presented by De bondt and Thaler (1985) ; relative strength of stock price discovered by Jagadeesh and Titman (1993) . These two paper has been considered to be the most compelling arguments against weak form of market efficiency.

Stock market efficiency has been the subject matter of research studies for periods well over the past three decades. Several theories have been established about basically how the competition will drive all information into the prices of securities quickly. Centering this idea the concept known as Efficient Market Hypothesis has been evolved which also has been the subject of intense debate among academics and financial professionals. Efficient Market Hypothesis states that at any given time security prices fully reflect all available information. It is stated that if the markets are efficient and current prices fully reflect all information then buying

In the Stock Market, More number of efficiency is studied. Weak form efficiency of Indian capital market studies are supported.(Prusty , 2007 ; Mittal and Jain , 2009).Weak form efficiency of Indian capital market do not support by researcher (Pandey , 2003 ; Mishra , 2009). Weak form of efficiency does not rejected. In the Financial System stock market is very important Factor. In stock index future ,there is no significant volatility effect. A volatility index is for very short term volatility.