Reading 55: Market Efficiency and Anomalies LOSa题精选 2010, limitation, efficient, following

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Session 13: Equity: Securities Markets
Reading 55: Market Efficiency and Anomalies

LOS a: Explain the three limitations to achieving fully efficient markets.

Which of the following is a limitation to fully efficient markets?

A) There are no limitations to fully efficient markets because the trading actions of fundamental and technical analysts are continuously keeping prices at their intrinsic value.

B) Information is always quickly disseminated and fully embedded in a security’s prices.

C) The gains to be earned by information trading can be less than the transaction costs the trading would entail.

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Market prices that are not precisely efficient can persist if the gains to be made by information trading are less than the transaction costs such trading would entail.

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David Farrington is an analyst at Farrington Capital Management. He is aware that many people believe that the capital markets are fully efficient. However, he is not convinced and would like to disprove this claim. Which of the following statements would support Farrington in his effort to demonstrate the limitations to fully efficient markets?

A) Stock prices adjust to their new efficient levels within hours of the release of new information.

B) Processing new information entails costs and takes at least some time, so security prices are not always immediately affected.

C) Technical analysis has been rendered useless by many academics who have shown that analyzing market trends, past volume and trading data will not lead to abnormal returns.

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If market prices are efficient there are no returns to the time and effort spent on fundamental analysis. But if no time and effort is spent on fundamental analysis there is no process for making market prices efficient. To resolve this apparent conundrum one can look to the time lag between the release of new value-relevant information and the adjustment of market prices to their new efficient levels. Processing new information entails costs and takes at least some time, which is a limitation of fully efficient markets.