The Efficient Market Theory |
Investing - Investing Articles | |||
Written by Hugh McManus | |||
Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 119 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 247 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 251 Warning: strftime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08az/b29/ipw.wellbeyo/public_html/libraries/joomla/utilities/date.php on line 252 Saturday, 23 August 2008 16:33 |
|||
The Efficient Market Theory (also referred to as the Efficient Market Hypothesis or The Principle of Capital Market Efficiency) is expressed in many ways, but one of the more common is that “all available information is reflected in the price of a stock.” The idea is that no one has an advantage. The minute something is known about a company, in fact the very nanosecond, the price of its stock and the value of its bonds adjust instantaneously to reflect this new knowledge. Securities—stocks and bonds—are always fairly priced. Most of us simply don’t believe this theory. I don't. I like the concept a lot, but personal experience leads me to believe that its a theory that's not fully formed. For one thing. If it’s true, why did stocks adjust so precipitously in October of 1987? In the US the markets are as efficient as markets can be; however, there does seem to be an element of the irrational every now and again. The stock market seems to be efficient in the long-term and pretty wacky in the short run. It was Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor, who said that in the short term, the market is a voting machine; while in the long term, it’s a weighing machine.
|