Market efficiency and the global financial crisis: evidence from developed markets

Purpose - This study aims to provide one of the first empirical investigations of market efficiency for developed markets during the recent global financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach - Using the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) country indices as proxies for national stock markets, the study conducts a battery of econometric tests in assessing weak-form market efficiency for the developed markets. Findings - The inferential outcomes are consistent among the different tests. Specifically, the study finds that the majority of developed markets are weak-form efficient while the USA is the sole equity market to be commonly diagnosed as weak-form inefficient across the different tests when using full period data spanning the January 2008-November 2011 period. However, when basing the analysis on one-year subsamples over the identical time period, this study fails to reject weak-form market efficiency for all of the developed markets and presents evidence consistent with the Adaptive Market Hypothesis as described by Urquhart and Hudson (2013). When applying technical analysis for the case of the USA over the full study period, the results indicate that the return predictabilities can be exploited for some horizon of variable length moving average (VMA) trading rules. Originality/value - This study provides one of the first empirical investigations of market efficiency for developed markets during the recent global financial crisis using an extended set of econometric tests. The study contributes to the existing body of empirical research that formally assesses the impact of a financial crisis on stock market efficiency and underlines the significance and relevance of examining market efficiency through subsample analysis.