... all information is fully reflected in securities prices. In other words, even insider information is of no use. The debate about efficient markets has resulted in hundreds and thousands of empirical studies attempting to determine whether specific markets are in fact "efficient" and if so to what degree. Investors have used price charts and price patterns as tools for predicting future price movements for as long as there have been financial markets. It is not surprising therefore, that the first studies of market efficiency focused on the relationship between price changes over time, to see if in fact such predictions were feasible. As the studies of the time series properties of prices expanded, the evidence can be classified into two classes: studies that focus on short-term price behavior and research that examines long-term price movements. The greatest blend in academic circles has been created by the results of volatility tests. These ...

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