1. INTRODUCTION
The efficient market, as one of the pillars of neoclassical finance, asserts that financial markets are efficient on information. The efficient market hypothesis suggests that there is no trading system based on currently available information that could be expected to generate excess risk-adjusted returns consistently as this information is already reflected in current prices. However, EMH has been the most controversial subject of research in the fields of financial economics during the last 40 years. “Behavioural finance, however, is now seriously challenging this premise by arguing that people are clearly not rational” (Ross, (2002)). Behavioral finance uses facts from psychology and other human sciences in order to explain human investors’ behaviors.
2. MAIN BODY
A generation ago, it was generally believed that security markets were efficient in adjusting information about individual stocks and stock market as a whole (Malkiel, (2003)). However, we cannot deny the efficient market hypothesis has several paradoxes.
In the first place, a main theoretical cornerstone for the EMH to be a consequence of equilibrium in capital markets is that markets are always rational. This is against the realism. Even if the foregoing assumption turn out to be entirely possible, many recent studies have concluded that rationality is not always a realistic assumption as investors in many cases engage in irrational investment (Kahneman and Riepe, (1998)).
Second, the efficient market hypothesis cannot explain market anomalies. These market anomalies include the pricing/earnings effect, the size and January effect, the monthly effect, holiday effect and the weekend effect. These anomalies indicate either market ineffici...
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...el, 2003. The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 2003, pp. 59-82.
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[16]. A Discussion with Burto Malkiel and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2005. Market Efficient versus Behavioural Finance, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Vol. 17, No. 3, A Morgan Stanley Publication, Summer 2005
Fama propounded EMH, in 1965, stating that provided all available information is used, market prices will reflect reasonably accurate approximations of the inherent present value of securities; the employment of this information would render agents’ actions rational. Ball expands on this by suggesting that competitive markets lead to costs falling in line with the employment of information.
Block, S. B., & Hirt, G. A. (2005). Foundations of Financial Management (11th ed). The
2. Olivier et al. (2000). Principles of Finance Management, 1st Ed. SA: Juta and Co.
The behaviour of markets and investors, the decision making in the market place and the dynamics of demand and supply in any given market cannot be determined with a hundred percent accuracy. However master minds in the past have designed various techniques and theories that help investors make a particular buying decision, or to make choices logically. These theories and techniques help today’s investors to peep into the future and make almost immaculate predictions regarding the future behaviour of the market and the ongoing trends. A lay man night view the decision making of an investor as being solely based upon speculation but in reality every move that an investor makes today in the market place is backed up by sound calculation and theories. Two of the most talked about and essential theories or concepts that are related to the market dynamics and that will be discussed at length in this assignment are Efficient Market Theory and Behavioural Finance.
Many investors can benefit from using newer financial instruments and critical analysis. The tenth edition of this book also provides a clear description of the academic...
Melicher, Ronald W. and Edgar A. Norton (2014). Introduction to Finance (15th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The efficient market hypothesis has been one of the main topics of academic finance research. The efficient market hypotheses also know as the joint hypothesis problem, asserts that financial markets lack solid hard information in making decisions. Efficient market hypothesis claims it is impossible to beat the market because stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information . According to efficient market hypothesis stocks always trade at their fair value on stock exchanges, making it impossible for investors to either purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks for inflated prices. As such, it should be impossible to outperform the overall market through expert stock selection or market timing, and that the only way an investor can possibly obtain higher returns is by purchasing riskier investments . In reality once cannot always achieve returns in excess of average market return on a risk-adjusted basis. They have been numerous arguments against the efficient market hypothesis. Some researches point out the fact financial theories are subjective, in other words they are ideas that try to explain how markets work and behave.
Arbitrage pricing theory and the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is in stock and asset pricing of the two most influential theories now . Different capital asset prici...
...e efficient. But some markets are more efficient than others. And in markets with substantial pockets of predictability, active investors can strive for outperformance. Peter Bernstein concludes that there is hope for active management: 'the efficient market is a state of nature dreamed up by theoreticians. Neat, elegant, even majestic, it has nothing to do with the real world of uncertainty in which you and I must make decisions every day we are alive.'
According to Perold (2004), ‘CAPM can be served as a benchmark for understanding the capital market phenomena that cause asset prices and investor behavior to deviate from the prescript...
Howells, Peter., Bain, Keith 2000, Financial Markets and Institutions, 3rd edn, Henry King Ltd., Great Britain.
Standard finance theory as defined by Thaler (1999) assumes “the representative agent” acts rationally by following the principles of the Expected Utility Theory and making future predictions based on rational information. It assumes there is no element of cognitive bias or sentiment affecting asset prices (O’Keeffe, 2014).
William Sharpe, Gordon J. Alexander, Jeffrey W Bailey. Investments. Prentice Hall; 6 edition, October 20, 1998
The long estimation window used in this study is because it included the y-intercept and slope of the prices in calculating the expected return when the market model is chosen to evaluate the abnormal return (Wong, 2011). There is a study of Brockett, Chen and Garven mentioned that the beta in the market model varies over the time and was used to account for the temporal changes in the return process (Pynnonen, 2005). Besides that, the event window suggested in the study of Teall (as cited by Phua & Liew, 2011) is typically 30 days before and after the event. Therefore, the length of the event window in this study will follow to the literature.
This paper will define and discuss five financial theories and how they impact business decisions made by financial managers. The theories will be the Modern Portfolio Theory, Tobin Separation Theorem, Equilibrium Theory, Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.