...Since the beginning of the 1970s, almost all financial economists believed in and accepted the efficient market hypothesis. Eugene Fama also known as intellectual father of the “efficient-market hypothesis” argued that it was impossible to “beat the market.” This idea was widely accepted because it held great sense and was easy to understand. Mr. Fama began his studies in the 1950s when he worked on a market-forecasting newsletter. Mr. Fama realized that human beings were working with strategies that didn’t quite work out. Fama wrote in his 1965 paper “In an efficient market at any point in time the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value.” This meant that the stock prices were changing everyday and there was no real was to predict what a stocks actual price would be in the future. Efficient market hypothesis is very controversial and often times people go against the theory. In 1191, Famas theories began to fade away. Fama began to realize that there was no possible was that the market was efficient enough to predict the price of a stock or search for an undervalued stock. A good example would be when the economy goes into a recession. There was no possible way to predict that the economy would take a down turn so fast. On the other side of the fence is the behaviorist group of economists. The behavioral finance concept is based on rational theories. The thought process is that people behave rationally and predictably. Richard...
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...The Australasian Accounting Business & Finance Journal, February 2007 Gaffikin: Accounting Research and Theory: the age of neo-empiricism. Vol. 1, No.1.pp. 1-19. Accounting Research and Theory: The age of neo-empiricism Michael Gaffikin, School of Accounting & Finance, University of Wollongong ABSTRACT The theorising in accounting prior to 1970 was rejected as not providing sufficiently general theories. Informed by theories in economics and finance (and other disciplines such as psychology) and with the aid of computers, attempts to theorise accounting took a new direction. Large data collection and analysis emphasized a purportedly more systematic empirical approach to developing theory. Key words: accounting; neo-empiricism; capital markets research; behavioural finance; efficient markets hypothesis; positive accounting theory INTRODUCTION Around 1970 there was a dramatic change in the approach to accounting research. Several reasons have been suggested for this change in methodological direction by those reviewing the development of accounting thought. To many, a major distinction is a change in direction away from attempts to prescribe a theory of accounting to developing theory from a description of extant practices. To advocates of the latter, previous attempts to develop a theory of accounting were futile as there could never be agreement over many of the inputs into a theory such as the postulates, principles but most specifically the assumptions. Although a...
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...what the theory concludes is that it is impossible to beat the market; that no investor can ever purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks at inflated prices. The market will always correct itself by incorporating all relevant information into the price of a security thus eliminating an individual investor’s ability to outperform. EMH has grown to become a cornerstone of financial theory and is still applied by many traditionalists when attempting to explain the behavior of financial markets. While there is much evidence in support of this theory there is an equal amount dissention. There are many who argue that there is ample evidence available that counters the central ideas of EMH and demonstrate its shortcomings such as: individuals who have shown that they can consistently beat the market as in the case of Warren Buffet; or the recent bursting of the dot com and real estate bubbles, two events which clearly show that market prices can seriously deviate from their fair values. Given the mounting evidence in direct contrast to EMH “new attempts are being made to explain the behavior of financial markets, one of the foremost of which is in the area of...
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...EFFICIENT MARKETS HYPOTHESIS AND OTHER THEORIES OF PRICING IN FINANCIAL MARKETS Name Course Title/Code Instructor’s Name Date Efficient Markets Hypothesis and other theories of pricing in financial markets Efficient market hypothesis (EMH) is a theory that emerged in the 1960s. It states that it is difficult to predict the market since the price has been set and reflect the current market conditions. It is a disputed and controversial theory. The theory is comparable to other theories of pricing in financial markets. Several strengths and shortcomings emerge through comparison with other theories of pricing (Blinder, et al., 2012). EMH states that no stock is a better buy when compared to others. It is the conclusion that leads to random choices. It is a vital tenet of finance theory. The EMH theory has a basis in other finance theories. It follows the classical theory of asset prices. To determine the connection, a situation where stocks are considered based on good deals. According to the EMH theory, these stocks are worth more than their relative prices. The worth of a stock is the present value of the expected dividends. In this regard, an individual will buy stocks at prices that are below this level. In essence, this is buying stocks that are undervalued assets (Kapil, 2011). Classical theory The classical theory follows the belief that the price of a stock is equal to the best estimate of the stock’s value. This equality means that the undervalued stocks are not real...
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...From Efficient Markets Theory to Behavioral Finance 1. What does Shiller mean by Behavioral Finance? Behavioral Finance is the collaboration between finance and other social sciences. This field of research is focused on determining the precise degree to which various market forces—including rational analysis of company-specific and macroeconomic fundamentals; human and social psychology; and cultural trends—influence investors’ expectations and determine their level of confidence or fear. Behaviorists believe that at times, the real determinants of stock market movements are the forces of human and cultural psychology, oranimal spirits (a term coined by economist John Maynar 2. How does Behavioral Finance contrast with Efficient Market Theory? Behavioral finance takes issue with two crucial implications of the EMH: (1) that the majority of investors make rational decisions based on available information; and (2) that the market price is always right. Behaviorists believe that numerous factors—irrational as well as rational—drive investor behavior. In sharp contrast to efficient markets theorists, behaviorists believe that investors frequently make irrational decisions and that the market price is not always a fair estimate of the underlying fundamental value. Still, many proponents of behavioral finance agree with at least one implication of the efficient market theory—that it’s not possible to reliably earn abnormal returns. 3. What prediction does Efficient...
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...Discussing the empirical evidence supportive of and against market efficiency. Stock prices changes are said to have a similar distribution and sovereign of each other, meaning that they follow a random pattern and past movement and trends cannot be used to predict future price of a stock. Efficient market hypothesis (EMH) states that beating the market consistently is impossible as stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always show and reflect all relevant information available in the market. According to the theory stock will always trade at their fair value on stock exchange, making it impossible for investors to purchase undervalued stocks or sell overpriced stock. But recent research has proved that gaining an abnormal profit is possible to some extent. EMH depends heavily on the level of information available in the market. In weak form efficiency all the past price movements is fully incorporated in current market price so technical analysis might not be used to predict and beat a market. While in a semi strong efficiency all public information is calculated into a stock’s current share price and in the strong form efficiency all private and public information is accounted in a stock price. Research has shown that market is efficient in all these forms. In weak form efficiency the random walk hypothesis1 is tested by testing the connection between the current return on a stock and the return on the same stock over a previous period. A positive serial...
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...Determinants of Financial Literacy among Youth: Case of Amritsar City Dr. Arwinder Singh Assistant Professor/Department of Commerce Guru Nanak Dev University Regional Campus, Gurdaspur, Punajb, India #08968092299 arwinder.gndu@yahoo.com Nitika Bhandari (Corresponding Author) Assistant Professor/Department of Commerce Khalsa College for Women, Amritsar, Punjab, India #08146993589 Nitika3088@gmail.com Determinants of Financial Literacy among Youth: Case of Amritsar City Abstract Financial markets around the world have become increasingly accessible to everyone but financial products are becoming more complex and difficult to grasp for an average individual. Therefore it is of paramount importance to equip the Youth with Financial Literacy so that they can manage their own finances and securing their financial future. The present study is carried out with the objective to find out the determinants of financial literacy of the youth. The major determinants that influence the financial literacy are required to be sought in order to deal with the complexities of current financial markets and products. Data has been collected through primary sources by framing questionnaire answered by 100 respondents in Amritsar. Factor Analysis has been used to analyse the data. The analysis revealed five underlying dimensions namely Interest in Financial Issues, Financial Behaviour, Saving habits, Financial Attitude and Financial Awareness. The results...
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...Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 27, 417427. Baker, M. and J. Wurgler (2006). Investor sentiment and the cross-section of stock returns. Journal of Finance 61, 16451680. Baker, M. and J. Wurgler (2007). Investor sentiment in the stock market. Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, 129151. Baker, M., J. Wurgler, and Y. Yuan (2011). Global, local, and contagious investor sentiment. Journal of Financial Economics . Barberis, N., A. Shleifer, and R. Vishny (1998). A model of investor sentiment. Journal of Financial Economics 49, 307343. Ben-Rephaela, A., S. Kandela, and A. Wohla (2012). Measuring investor sentiment with mutual fund ows. Journal of Financial Economics 104, 363382. Bergsma, K. and D. Jiang (2013). Let's celebrate! cultural new year and stock returns around the world. Working paper, Florida State University. 30 Bodurtha, J. N., D. S. Kim, and C. Lee (1995). Closed-end country funds and u.s. market sentiment. Review of Financial Studies Vol. 8(3), pp. 879918. Bollen, J., H. Mao, and X. Zeng (2011). Twitter mood predicts the stock market. Journal of Computational Science 2 (1), pp. 18. Brown, W. G. and M. T. Cli (2005). Investor sentiment and asset valuation. Journal of Business 78(2), 405440. Campbell, J., S. J. Grossman, and J. Wang (1993). Trading volume and serial correlation in stock returns. Quarterly Journal of Economics 108(4), 905939. Choi, H. and H. R. Varian (2009). Predicting...
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...as pertains the evolution of stock market efficiency over time, with a keen focus on the weak form Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). The authors provide a systematic review of the correlation between several financial factors namely: Adaptive Markets Hypothesis (AMH), Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), Evolving Return Predictability, Stock markets and Weak-form EMH. The authors pay keen attention on how return predictability from past price changes is affected by key players and determinants on the stock markets. From the survey they conduct, the posit that the bulk of the empirical studies examine whether the stock market under study is or is not weak-form efficient in the absolute sense, assuming that the level of market efficiency remains unchanged throughout the estimation period. The authors acknowledge that one field that has drawn extensive investigation by scholars and other players alike is the predictability of stock returns on the basis of past price changes. This is partly due to its direct implication on weak-form market efficiency. They find that a vast majority of the literature implicitly assumes the level of market efficiency remains unchanged throughout the estimation period. However, the possibility of temporal instability in the underlying economic relations has received increasing attention from economists (see, for example, Stock and Watson, 2003). Kian-Ping Lim and Robert Brooks through their present survey show that there is an expanding literature...
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...The Impact of Financial Education in High School and College On Financial Literacy and Subsequent Financial Decision Making by Lewis Mandell Kermit O. Hanson Visiting Professor of Finance and Business Economics Foster School of Business, University of Washington Senior Fellow, Initiative on Financial Security, Aspen Institute Presented at the American Economic Association Meetings San Francisco, CA January 4, 2009 The Impact of Financial Education in High School and College On Financial Literacy and Subsequent Financial Decision Making Abstract: Many consumers appear to lack the financial literacy needed to make financial decisions in their self-interest. A growing number of analysts and politicians are blaming the intersection of low levels of financial literacy with complex, financially-engineered products for the current economic meltdown and have proposed a number of solutions to this problem. These solutions range from mandatory education in personal finance to required simplification of financial products and greatly increased regulation. This paper examines evidence on the effectiveness of personal finance education on both financial literacy and financial behavior. If the problem can be solved through education, it is likely to reduce the perceived need to limit choice in the marketplace for retail financial products. If education is shown to be ineffective, the future of financial product innovation and financial engineering may be greatly limited. Supporting...
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...Course Number: FINA 6278 - MSF Program 11 / 07 / 2012 Course title: Financial Theory and Research (Part 1 – Financial Markets and Asset Pricing) Team Member: Haotian Lin; Nan Bai; Wenyi Gu; Yibo Zang Summary Standard finance (modern portfolio theory), compared with Behavioral finance, is no longer modern: dating back to the late 1950s modern portfolio theory was developed (Statman 2008) Behavioral finance offers alternative explanation for investors and markets. Behavioral finance, which has been a controversial subject and is becoming more widely accepted, is finance from a broader social science perspective including psychology and sociology (Shiller 2003). Behavioral finance helps identify the financial market’s inefficient reaction to public information, which cannot be explained by traditional financial models with assumptions such as expected utility maximization, rational investors, and efficient markets (Ritter 2003; Statman 2008). Statman (2008) compares “normal” investors and rational investors by pointing out the difference that normal investors are reluctant to realize losses since normal investors are affected by cognitive biases and emotions. Statman also compares Behavioral Portfolio Theory and Markowitz mean-variance theory. Another comparison made by Statman is between Behavioral Asset Pricing Model (BAPM) and capital asset pricing model (CAPM), stating that the asset pricing model of standard finance is moving away from CAPM toward Fama...
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...efficient market hypothesis suggest that they cannot. This hypothesis asserts that the security markets are so efficient that the current prices of a stock properly reflects earnings and dividends. When funds are invested in the financial market, the aspiration is to produce a return on the investment. Many shareholders try not only to make a lucrative return, but acquire substantial gains and beat the market. Nevertheless, market efficiency - campaigned in the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) originated by Eugene Fama in 1970, suggests that at any given time, prices fully reflect all available information on a specific securities and the market. The hypothesis asserts that the market adjusts security prices as new information is disseminated. In the modern world of advanced communication, information is precipitously distributed in the investment community. The market then adjusts security prices in harmony with the impact of the news on the firm’s future earnings and dividends. By the time that the individual investor has obtained the information, security pricing probably will have already changed. Thus, the investor will not be able to profit from acting on the data. The quality of data does not have to be constrained to financial news and investigation only; undeniably, data about political, fiscal and social outcomes, pooled with how investors perceive such data, alleged or not, will be reflected in the market price. As per the Efficient Market Hypothesis,...
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...Table of Contents WELCOME FROM ACADEMIC PROGRAM DIRECTOR ............................................................................ 1 MEET THE FACULTY................................................................................................................................... 2 ORIENTATION SCHEDULE ....................................................................................................................... 10 ACADEMIC CALENDAR ............................................................................................................................. 11 MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FINANCE PROGRAM SUMMARY ................................................................. 12 GETTING STARTED .................................................................................................................................. 13 JHED ID .................................................................................................................................................. 13 Blackboard FAQs .................................................................................................................................... 13 Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) ........................................................................................ 14 LIFE AT THE CAREY BUSINESS SCHOOL .............................................................................................. 15 HEALTH INSURANCE FOR STUDENTS...........................................
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...Efficient Market Discussion and Understanding of Finance As the 2013 Nobel Laureates in economic science, both of Eugene Fama, from the University of Chicago and Robert Shiller, from Yale University, have made famous contribution to the finance world. Even though their views toward market efficiency seem mutually contradictory, their theories has been highly valued by the finance academia as well as industry. This paper compares and contrasts the work of both of them and discusses how their work influence my understanding of finance. Fama is known for his work in initiating and developing the “efficient market hypothesis (EMH).” In his paper, Fama defines “efficient market” as “a market in which prices always fully reflect available information” (Fama 1970). If prices did reflect all available information, trading rules and fundamental analysis would not help investors to constantly earn abnormal return. This proposition has been checked by others and himself in the following papers: "Random Walks in Stock Market Prices (Fama 1965)," and "Filter Rules and Stock Market Trading Profits" (Blume, Fama 1966). Stock prices react to new information so quickly that it is almost impossible to trade on that piece of new information and profit from it. Furthermore, investors cannot earn abnormal returns without taking more systematic risk. To address the different types of information that stock prices could reflect, Fama prosed three types of market efficiency: (1) strong-form, where...
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...Literature Review: Do Markets Work Or Do They Just Work Until They Don’t? “One of the most constant aspects of American life is change – and nowhere is it more evident than in our financial markets.” – Henry Paulson, in his remarks on Blueprint for Regulatory Reform (3/31/2008) It is hard to believe that we have had so many market crashes throughout history and yet there exist so many people that claim they can guarantee certain returns. This fallacy is one of the main components of economics as a study. So called experts have been known to praise certain theories while they unknowingly march into a market crash. In order to understand how market crashes happen, it is critical to understand the beliefs that were held leading up to past crises. In Olivier J. Blanchard’s paper published in 2008 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, he declares that “the state of macro is good” (Blanchard 2008, 2). Blanchard, of MIT, was expressing his contempt with the way in which the macroeconomy appeared to be operating and the ability of economists to explain the operations. He was not alone. Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, admitted in October of 2008 to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he was “shocked because [he had] been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that [the economy] was working exceptionally well.” What had led these renowned experts to believe all was well while the markets were wildly deviating from their...
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