Testing the Weak Form of Efficient Market Hypothesis: Empirical Evidence from Jordan

Abstract

Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) implies that the future price of a stock is unpredictable with respect to currently available information; our study conducted in order to test efficiency of the Amman stock market (ASE) returns at the weak-form, by using daily observations for the Amman Stock Exchange. Parametric and nonparametric tests e utilized for examining the randomness of stock prices for ASE. The Jarque-Bera test show evidence for normality that the daily returns of the ASE are not normally distributed, and the runs tests both detect that the daily returns are inefficient at the weak form. In addition, the unit root tests (Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test and Phillips-Peron (PP) unit root test) suggest the weak-form inefficiency in the return series. In general, we can conclude that the ASE stock market is inefficient at the weak form level.
Key words: Weak-Form efficient market hypotheses; Runs test; Unit root tests