Market Efficiency, Long-Term Returns, and Behavioral Finance

Paper by Eugene F. Fama

Market efficiency survives the challenge from the literature on long-term return anomalies. Consistent with the market efficiency hypothesis that the anomalies are chance results, apparent over-reaction to information is about as common as under-reaction. And post-event continuation of pre-event abnormal returns is about as frequent as post-event reversal. Consistent with the market efficiency prediction that apparent anomalies can also be due to methodology, the anomalies are sensitive to the techniques used to measure them, and many disappear with reasonable changes in technique.

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The Behavior of Interest Rates

Paper by Eugene F. Fama

The evidence in Fama and Bliss (1987) that forward interest rates forecast future spot interest rates for horizons beyond a year repeats in the out-of-sample 1986-2004 period. But the inference that this forecast power is due to mean reversion of the spot rate toward a constant expected value no longer seems valid. Instead, the predictability of the spot rate captured by forward raets seems to be due to mean reversion toward a time-varying expected value that is subject to a sequence of apparently permanent shocks that are on balance positive to mid-1981 and on balance negative thereafter.

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