The Weak-Form Efficiency of The GCC Markets

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.

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

In this article, “Is the efficient market hypothesis day-of-the-week dependent,”, Stephen Pop reveals significant evidence that the efficient market hypothesis is day-of-the-week-dependent. Overall, for only 62% of firms, the unit root null hypothesis is rejected on all the five trading days. He also discovers that when investors do not account for unit root properties in devising trading strategies, they obtain spurious

EHRLICH, J. H. (1986). INTERNATIONAL OF STOCK MARKETS: POTENTIAL PROBLEMS FOR UNITED STATES SHAREHOLDERS. J. INT'L L. & BUS.

The premise of an efficient market is that stock prices adjust accordingly as information is received. The speed and accuracy of the pricing changes are a reflection of the strength of the market efficiency, where in theory a perfectly efficient market will re-adjust prices immediately and precisely with new information. The efficient market hypothesis aligns with beliefs about whether technical and fundamental analyses are useful in making investment decisions or whether a passive approach is appropriate. In a perfectly efficient market, these types of analyses are not able to predict stock price trends (based on market inefficiencies or price abnormalities) which could assist in portfolio positioning or investment management. However, some investors belive that the market pricing is not precise and that there are timing windows and pricing trends that can be identified through analysis of past performance and finding price abnormalities where all information is not correctly reflected in the stock price (Hirt, Block and Basu, 2006).

Under the idea that markets are efficient, stock prices reflect new information quickly and accurately. Furthermore, Morningstar (n.d.) contributes details on the strongest supportive theory of efficient markets, EMH exists in three forms: weak, semi-strong and strong. The hypothesis calls for the existence of informationally efficient markets, were current stock prices reflect all information, and attempts to outperform the market will only come in the form of riskier investments. Also, because of a large number of independent investors actively analyzing new information simultaneously as it enters the market, investors react accordingly and is immediately reflected in the stock

S. Basu (1997) tested for the information content of price-earnings multiple. He tested to see whether low P/E stocks outperform stocks with high P/E ratios. If historical P/E ratios provided useful information for obtaining higher stock returns then it would be refutation of semi strong form of efficient market hypothesis. His results indicated that low P/E portfolios provided superior returns relative to the market and high P/E provided inferior returns relative to the market. The results reported in this paper indicate that P/E ratio information was not fully

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

When establishing financial prices, the market is usually deemed to be well-versed and clever. In a stock market, stocks are based on the information given and should be priced at the accurate level. In the past, this was supposed to be guaranteed by the accessibility of sufficient information from investors. However, as new information is given the prices would shift. “Free markets, so the hypothesis goes, could only be inefficient if investors ignored price sensitive data. Whoever used this data could make large profits and the market would readjust becoming efficient once again” (McMinn, 2007, ¶ 1). This paper will identify the different forms of EMH, sources supporting and refuting the EMH and finally

The efficient market hypothesis states that financial markets are profitable and that the prices in the stock market already embed all familiar information regarding a stock or other security and that the prices adjust quickly to new information which includes current and future expectations about a stock. It further explains that if all needed information concerning the investment is known, it will be difficult for any investor to outperform the market since he/she will be working with the same information as everyone else. Also, that it is impossible to consistently beat the market by stock-picking.

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.

Differing from Jiang, Bekaert and Urias (1999) investigate the gains from holding the emerging market closed-end mutual funds, open-end mutual funds, and ADRs in a global equity portfolio.35 Using mean-variance spanning tests, they find that

The efficient market hypothesis is constantly being analyzed for its validity in the current market. There are a multitude of external factors contributing to the reluctance of relying on the EMH. Specifically, the rise of high frequency trading has significantly called into question the legitimacy of the efficient

I end up this discussion by emphasizing that the basic procedure to find a market response is to associate some measure of market return on securities with some measure of the information content of the financial statements. I then review the 1968 Ball and Brown study. Since their methodology takes some getting used to for students who have not seen it before, I stick fairly closely to the coverage in Section 5.3, although the article itself could usefully be assigned as reading by instructors who wish to consider BB’s procedures in greater depth. I concentrate on explaining how BB operationalized the measurements of market return and information content of net income. Figure 5.3 is useful in this regard. The figure also ties nicely back to the efficient securities market theory of Chapter 4, and the discussion in Example 3.3 of the dichotomization of factors affecting share price into market-wide and firm-specific factors (Example 3.3 is optional reading, however). I go on to review briefly the ERC research outlined in Section 5.4, as an example of an important direction in which the Ball and Brown methodology has developed. I concentrate on persistence as an explanatory variable for the ERC since this concept is