Efficiency Hypothesis of the Stock Markets: A Case of Indian Securities

摘要

The paper attempts to investigate the validity of the Efficient Market Hypothesis on the Indian Securities Market. Initially, the paper discusses the definitions and types of the EMH, as also the literature available on the same. Taking a sample of eleven securities listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the oldest stock exchange of Asia, we apply the runs tests and the autocorrelation tests in order to judge the efficiency of the Stock Markets. The Autocorrelation test when directly applied to share prices gives conflicting results with Runs test and thus, making it difficult to reach a definite conclusion. Then, the autocorrelation test is applied to first differenced series, which gives satisfactory results. In a nutshell, it is observed that the effect of stock prices for the sample companies on future prices is very meager and an investor cannot reap profits by using the share price data as the current share prices already reflect the effect of past share prices.