It is generally accepted in academic circles that the developed country capital markets with their advanced infra-structure, depth and liquidity are at a minimum Weak-Form efficient. Since the Weak-Form EMH proposes that current security prices immediately assimilate all historical information, it therefore also implies that technical analysis (which relies on charts and analysis of past price patterns to extrapolate future price movements) would be a futile exercise. Yet technical analysis has endured over time and is still an intensively and widely used investment analysis technique. This indicates a clear disconnect between technical analysis as employed by practitioners in the market and the technical analysis methodologies utilized by academics in prior Weak-Form EMH studies. The problem is prior technical analysis Weak-Form EMH studies were burdened with methodological weaknesses which severely handicapped the profit generating potential of technical analysis and suggest that previous Weak-Form EMH research findings were erroneous in being unable to reject the null Weak- Form market efficiency hypothesis. This study addresses the problem by eliminating prior methodological weaknesses and utilizing high frequency intra-day data, the combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques and volume signals to develop a portfolio of Intermarket Momentum technical analysis strategies that generate significant excess profits. The objective of this study is therefore to provide evidence that contrary to prior research findings, the developed country capital markets are not Weak-Form efficient. The results show that the portfolio of Intermarket Momentum trading strategies generated returns in excess of the market with a significantly positive Alpha of 8.52% that allowed the rejection of the Null Hypothesis and the acceptance of the Alternative Hypothesis that the developed country capital markets are not Weak-Form efficient, thereby refuting the widely accepted EMH. / Business Management / D.B.L.

This thesis is dedicated to the stock markets issue. Its main aim was to assess the effectiveness of the stock market and choose an appropriate investment strategy. To this purpose, the 5 industries of U.S. stock market were chosen, which served as a data base for all applied methods. The thesis presents the results of correlation and runs tests verifying the weak form of market efficiency, the results of fundamental analysis and of active strategies simulation as well. The final part is focused on creating of investment portfolio, which was chosen as the most appropriate investment strategy of the refenrence data set.

The purpose of this thesis is: (i) to produce an in-depth data analysis and computer-based simulations of the market environment to investigate whether financial stability is affected by the presence of High-Frequency investors; (ii) to verify how High-Frequency Trading and financial stability interact with each other under non-linear conditions; (iii) whether non-illicit behaviours can still lead to potentially destabilising effects; (iv) to provide quantitative support to the theses, either from the audit trail data or resulting from simulations. Simulations are provided to test whether High-Frequency Trading: (a) has an impact on market volatility, (b) leads to market splitting into two tiers; (c) takes the lion's share of arbitrage opportunities. Audit trail data is analysed to verify some hypotheses on the dynamics of the Flash Crash. The simulation on the impact of High-Frequency Trading on market volatility confirms that when markets are under stress, High-Frequency Trading may cause volatility to significantly increase. However, as the number of ultra-fast participants increases, this phenomenon tends to disappear and volatility realigns to its standard values. The market tiering simulation suggests that High-Frequency traders have some tendency to deal with each other, and that causes Low-Frequency traders also to deal with other slow traders, albeit at a lesser extent. This is also a kind of market instability. High-Frequency Trading potentially allows a few fast traders to grab all the arbitrage-led profits, so falsifying the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This phenomenon may disappear as more High-Frequency traders enter the competition, leading to declining profits. Yet, the whole matter seems a dispute for abnormal gains only between few sub-second traders. All simulations have been carefully designed to provide robust results: the behaviours simulated have been drawn from existing literature and the simplifying assumptions have been kept to a minimum. This maximises the reliability of the results and minimizes the potential of bias. Finally, from the data analysis, the impact of High-Frequency Trading on the Flash Crash seems significant; other sudden crashes occurred since, and more can be expected over the next future. Overall, it can be concluded that High-Frequency Trading shows some controversial aspects impacting on financial stability. The results are at a certain extent confirmed by the audit trail data analysis, although only indirectly, since the details allowing the match between High-Frequency traders and their behaviour are confidential and not publicly available Nevertheless, the findings about HFT-induced volatility, market segmentation and sub-optimal market efficiency, albeit not definitive, suggest that careful monitoring by regulators and policy-makers might be required.

Investors and fund managers have, since the start of financial markets, always been on the lookout for new ways of beating the market. However, researchers of the Efficient Market Hypothesis have shown that markets are usually highly efficient, implying that there are few possibilities of earning returns that are higher than the market returns, on a risk adjusted basis. Prevailing theories, such as the Capital Asset Pricing Model, has shown that increased return must stem from taking on higher risk. Though, this model’s explanatory power has been challenged by numerous researchers who propose different factors, other than market risk, which could hold explanatory power when it comes to returns in the stock market. This area of research is called factor investing, and has shown that factors such as momentum, size, and value, all can lead to outperforming the market.This study examines how a model based on two common factors, quality and value, would have performed on the Swedish stock market. The study is based on five portfolios chosen by the quality and value factors, each one held for 5 years, examined over a 25-year time span and uses the capital asset pricing model as a tool to measure whether or not the selected factors outperform the market. The study has taken a quantitative approach to examining the research question, using a positivistic and objectivistic view.The results of the study show evidence that the quality and value factors can lead to significant outperformance relative to the market index. Both total returns and risk adjusted returns were higher than the market index for some of the portfolios created using the quality and value factors. Furthermore, statistical evidence was found of that CAPM not fully explains all returns, and thus, that the returns are in part explained by the quality and value factors. The findings led to the conclusion that the quality and value factors does, in fact, hold explanatory power beyond that of CAPM. Purchasing quality companies at a reasonable price is shown to be a sound investment strategy, and that a portfolio created using the quality and value factors has good chances of outperforming the market index.

nÃo hà / Este estudo investiga a hipÃtese de eficiÃncia de mercado, a qual designa que estratÃgias de previsibilidade baseadas no comportamento passado das sÃries de retornos de aÃÃes nÃo implicam a obtenÃÃo de lucros econÃmicos. SÃo analisados dados de 25 mercados, estendendo-se de janeiro de 1990 a janeiro de 2010. A metodologia principal consiste na aplicaÃÃo de cinco testes de raiz unitÃria para painel, entre os quais se destaca o de Pesaran, Smith e Yamagata (2009), o qual assume que existe um determinado nÃmero de variÃveis que sÃo simultaneamente afetadas por um dado conjunto de fatores comuns nÃo observados. Os resultados modificam-se conforme altera-se o poder dos testes. O principal teste aplicado, particularmente, rejeita a hipÃtese em questÃo, sinalizando a possibilidade de exploraÃÃo de certas ineficiÃncias para a obtenÃÃo de lucros adicionais. / This paper investigates the efficient market hypothesis, which indicates a situation where investors are not able to develop a familiarity with past patterns of returns in order to obtain extra profits. It is used a sample containing 25 markets over the period January 1990 to January 2010. Econometric Methodology consists in exploiting five unit root tests, between which Pesaran, Smith e Yamagata (2009) is in relief, which assumes that there exists a number of variables that are simultaneously affected by a given set of unobserved common factors. Main results reject the efficient market hypothesis, indicating possibilities of exploiting inefficiency for obtaining extra profits.

Partindo dos conceitos estabelecidos pela Hipótese dos Mercados Eficientes (HME), a qual questiona a validade da Análise Gráfica, e considerando as críticas feitas à HME pelos defensores das assim chamadas Finanças Comportamentais, e outros, este estudo procurou detectar a existência de uma relação entre os sinais gráficos observados no dia-a-dia do mercado de ações brasileiro e as tendências que lhes sucedem, durante um período de 8 anos, para um número de papéis. Os resultados obtidos neste trabalho evidenciam a existência de tal relação, sugerindo a validade da utilização da Análise Gráfica como instrumento para a previsão de preços no mercado de ações brasileiro, no período considerado. / Based on the principles established by the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), which argues that the Technical Analysis is of no value in order to predict future prices of securities, and considering the criticism to the EMH by the advocates of the so called Behavioral Finance, and others, this work tried to detect the existence of a relationship between the graphic signals observed day by day in the Brazilian stock market and the trends which happen after these signals, within a period of 8 years, for a number of securities. The results obtained from this study offer evidence of the existence of such relationship, suggesting the validity of the Technical Analysis as an instrument to predict security prices in the Brazilian stock market within that period.

Esse estudo visa testar a eficiência informacional dos mercados acionários brasileiro e mexicano, através do desenvolvimento de um estudo de eventos. Para viabilização do estudo, o mercado brasileiro será representado pela BOVESPA - Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo e o mercado mexicano pela BMV - Bolsa Mexicana de Valores. Especificamente, esses mercados serão representados pelas ações de empresas que participaram da composição das carteiras teóricas dos Índices IBOVESPA e IpyC (Índice de Precios y Cotizaciones) durante todo o período compreendido entre Janeiro de 2001 e Janeiro de 2006. Foram analisadas as reações dos retornos das ações nesses mercados nos dias próximos às datas das divulgações de resultados trimestrais pelas empresas em busca de evidências de ineficiências. Os resultados encontrados mostraram indícios de eficiência informacional quando as empresas foram consideradas individualmente e indícios de ineficiência informacional quando considerada carteira toda. / This study aims to test the informational efficiency of the Brazilian and Mexican stock markets, through the development of an event study. For this purpose, BOVESPA, the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange will represent the Brazilian stock market while the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) will represent the Mexican stock market. Specifically, these markets will be represented by the company stocks that participated of the composition of their stock market indexes, IBOVESPA (BOVESPA Index) and IPyC (Mexican Stock Exchange Index), during the period of January 2001 through January 2006. Stock prices were analyzed for the days around the quarterly results release dates, searching for inefficiency evidence in these markets. The results show signs of information-efficiency when considering each company and information inefficiency when considering the market portfolio.

På 1980-talet handlade en grupp, som kallades för The Turtle Traders, med två trendföljande handelsstrategier helt baserade på teknisk analys på ett stort antal finansmarknader. De två handelsstrategierna byggde på mekaniska regler för köp- respektive säljbeslut och riskhantering, men även regler för vilka marknader som var tillåtna att handla på. Gruppen var mycket framgångsrik under flera år och medlemmarnas avkastningar översteg marknadernas avkastningar med råge. Den svaga varianten av den effektiva marknadshypotesen säger att detta ska vara omöjligt på effektiva marknader. På en effektiv marknad är det enligt hypotesen istället bättre att följa en buy-and-hold strategi. Hur kommer det sig att The Turtle Traders lyckades? Var det bara tur att de två trendföljande strategierna, som genererade köp- och säljbesluten, gav väldigt höga avkastningar under några år på 1980-talet? Eller är inte marknaderna effektiva? Inom forskningen råder det idag en oklar bild kring den effektiva marknadshypotesen och huruvida marknaderna är effektiva. Olika vetenskapliga studier presenterar tester som både stöder och förkastar hypotesen. Syftet med det här examensarbetet är att visa huruvida de två trendföljande strategierna fortfarande är vinstgivande och därmed användbara strategier på dagens finansmarknader. Syftet är också att jämföra de två strategierna med buy-and-hold strategin på olika marknaderna och därmed bidra med ytterligare insikter till den numera alltmer ifrågasättande diskussionen kring den effektiva marknadshypotesen, med speciellt fokus på den svaga varianten. För att få fram vilka avkastningar de två trendföljande strategierna ger på dagens marknader konstrueras inom ramen för detta examensarbete ett datorprogram som simulerar de köp- och säljbeslut som skulle tas med hjälp av de mekaniska regler som de två trendföljande strategierna bygger på. Undersökningen i examensarbetet ger, precis som många andra undersökningar, en oklar bild kring den effektiva marknadshypotesen. Hälften av de finansmarknader som undersöks tycks vara ineffektiva och hälften effektiva, enligt den svaga varianten av hypotesen. Undersökningen visar även att de två trendföljande strategierna inte är så pass vinstgivande att de kan rekommenderas att använda på dagens finansmarknader. / During the 1980s a group called The Turtle Traders used two trend following trading strategies, based on technical analysis, to trade a large number of financial markets. The two trading strategies used mechanical rules to make buy and sell decisions and to manage risk. The rules also specified which markets to trade. The group was very successful during several years in the 1980s and the returns the members of the group generated, using the two trading strategies, widely surpassed the returns of the markets. The weak form of the efficient market hypothesis states that this should be impossible on markets that are efficient. On efficient markets it is instead better to follow a buy-and-hold strategy. How come that The Turtle Traders succeeded? Was is just luck that the two trend following strategies, that generated the buy and sell decisions, resulted in such high returns during a few years in the 1980s? Or are the markets inefficient? Current research gives an unclear picture regarding the efficient market hypothesis and whether or not the markets are efficient. Different studies present results that both support and reject the hypothesis. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to show whether or not the two trend following strategies still are profitable and therefor useful strategies on the financial markets of today. The purpose is also to compare the two strategies with the buy-and-hold strategy on different markets and in this way contribute with more insights to the ongoing and nowadays often increasingly questioning discussion regarding the efficient market hypothesis, with special focus on the weak form of the hypothesis. To get the returns of the two trend following strategies on the financial markets of today a computer program is constructed as part of this bachelor thesis. This computer program simulates the buy and sell decisions that would have been taken by the mechanical rules the two trend following strategies are built upon. The study done in this bachelor thesis gives, just as many other studies, an unclear picture of the efficient market hypothesis. Half of the markets that are studied in this thesis seem to be inefficient and half seem to be efficient, according to the weak form of the hypothesis. The study also shows that none of the two trend following strategies are profitable enough that they can be recommended to be used on the financial markets of today.

The goal of the thesis is to evaluate the degree of efficiency of the particular markets and to apply the methods of fundamental and technical analysis on them in order to assess their efficiency in terms of profitablity. The thesis analyses the degree of long-term memory of the particular commodities and stock indices via Hurst coefficient. Afterwards fundamental and technical methods are applied to the market with the highest degree of long-term memory, which is the feeder cattle market. Indidivual methods from both disciplines are being applied at first, after wich a combnation of both is appleid as well. The result is the discovery, whether combining the two approaches leads to a higher profitability of the trading strategy. At the end the effect of transacton costs is also evalauted and a final conclusion is made regarding the profit potential of both methods for the case of individual Czech investor.

The goal of my thesis is to verify the weak form of the efficiency of the exchange market. The paper results from the presumptions for efficient price movements on the financial markets. They are applied to the time series of exchange rates of five currency pairs. After definitions of testing methodology, the given exchange rates series are analysed with the help of correlation and autocorrelation test, runs test and a test based on technical analysis. The conclusion of the thesis anwers the question if the exchange rates movements are suitable with the efficient market hypothesis.