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Using a Stochastic Complexity Measure to Check the Efficient Market Hypothesis

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  • Armin Shmilovici
  • Yael Alon-Brimer
  • Shmuel Hauser

Abstract

The weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) states that current market price reflects fully the information from past prices and rules out prediction based on price data alone. No recent test of time series of stock returns rejects this weak-form hypothesis. This research offers another test of the weak form of the EHM that leads to different conclusions for some time series.The stochastic complexity of a time series is a measure of the number of bits needed to represent and reproduce the information in the time series. In an efficient market, compression of the time series is not possible, because there are no patterns and the stochastic complexity is high. In this research, Rissanen's context tree algorithm is used to identify recurring patterns in the data, and use them for compression. The weak form of the EMH is tested for 13 international stock indices and for all the stocks that comprise the Tel-Aviv 25 index (TA25), using sliding windows of 50, 75, and 100 consecutive daily returns. Statistically significant compression is detected in ten of the international stock index series. In the aggregate, 60% to 84% of the TA25 stocks tested demonstrate compressibility beyond randomness. This indicates potential market inefficiency. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Armin Shmilovici & Yael Alon-Brimer & Shmuel Hauser, 2003. "Using a Stochastic Complexity Measure to Check the Efficient Market Hypothesis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 273-284, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:22:y:2003:i:2:p:273-284
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1026198216929
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. "Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-1617, December.
    2. Ching-Wei Tan, 1999. "Estimating the Complexity Function of Financial Time Series: An Estimation Based on Predictive Stochastic Complexity," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 1143, Society for Computational Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sornette, Didier & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2006. "Predictability of large future changes in major financial indices," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 153-168.
    2. Brandouy, Olivier & Delahaye, Jean-Paul & Ma, Lin & Zenil, Hector, 2014. "Algorithmic complexity of financial motions," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 336-347.
    3. Lucio Maria Calcagnile & Fulvio Corsi & Stefano Marmi, 2016. "Entropy and efficiency of the ETF market," Papers 1609.04199, arXiv.org.
    4. Shternshis, Andrey & Mazzarisi, Piero & Marmi, Stefano, 2022. "Measuring market efficiency: The Shannon entropy of high-frequency financial time series," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Olivier Brandouy & Jean-Paul Delahaye & Lin Ma, 2015. "Estimating the Algorithmic Complexity of Stock Markets," Papers 1504.04296, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    stochastic complexity; the Efficient Market Hypothesis; context tree;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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