argues that the financial marketplace contains pockets of inefficiency in the availability and use of information, such that insiders can earn excess returns by selectively trading [r]
(1)(2)Chapter 3
The Financial
(3)3 3
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Money and Capital Markets, 9/e © 2006 The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives
(4)Introduction
• Sound financial decisions require adequate and reliable
financial information
• We may divide the sources of information relied on by
financial decision makers into:
debt security prices and yields, stock prices and dividend yields, information on security issuers,
(5)3 5
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MoneyandCapitalMarkets,9/e â2006TheMcGrawưHillCompanies,Inc.,AllRightsReserved.
TheGreatDebateOver
EfficientMarkets&AsymmetricInformation
ã Theefficientmarketshypothesis(EMH)contendsthat
information relevant to the pricing (valuation) of loans,
(6)Efficient Markets & Asymmetric Information
• On the other hand, the concept of asymmetric information
(7)3 7
McGrawHill/Irwin
Money and Capital Markets, 9/e © 2006 The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
The Great Debate Over
Efficient Markets & Asymmetric Information
• In an efficient marketplace, each individual investor will
rationally use all the relevant information that is available to value stocks and bonds
• Hence, each financial asset will generate an ordinary, normal
(8)The Great Debate Over
Efficient Markets & Asymmetric Information
• If the EMH holds, any temporary deviation of actual returns
from expected returns should be quickly eliminated as
(9)3 9
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MoneyandCapitalMarkets,9/e â2006TheMcGrawưHillCompanies,Inc.,AllRightsReserved.
DifferentFormsoftheEMH
ã TheweakformoftheEMHarguesthatthecurrentpriceofa
financial asset already reflects all its price and trading volume history
• The semistrong form contends that the current price of a financial asset already reflects all publicly available and relevant information
• The strong form argues that the current price of a financial
(10)Different Forms of the EMH
• Repeated research studies tend to support the weak and
semistrong forms of the EMH
• The strong form, however, has aroused the most controversy,