Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast | The Big Picture: The Efficient Market Hypothesis, according to Shiller, is one of the most remarkable errors in the history of economic thought. EMH should be consigned to the dustbin of history. We need to stop teaching it, and brainwashing the innocent. Rob Arnott tells a lovely story of a speech he was giving to some 200 finance professors. He asked how many of them taught EMH - pretty much everyone’s hand was up. Then he asked how many of them believed it. Only two hands stayed up!
And we wonder why funds and banks, full of the best and brightest, have made such a mess of things. Part of the reason is that we have taught economic nonsense to two generations of students. They have come to rely upon models based on assumptions that are absurd on their face. And then they are shocked when the markets deliver them a “hundred-year flood” every 4 years. The models say this should not happen. But do they abandon their models? No, they use them to convince regulators that things should not be changed all that much. And who can argue with a model that was the basis for a Nobel Prize?
I am again out of town this week, but I have been saving a speech done by my friend James Montier of Societe Generale in London on the problems with the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EFM). While parts of it are wonkish, there are also parts that are quite funny (at least to an economist).
Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas usually have bad consequences. The current maelstrom from which we are emerging (finally, if in fits and starts) has many culprits. A lot of bad ideas and poor management that came together to create the perfect storm. Today, we look at some of the ideas that are part of the problem but are too often glossed over because they are “academic” and not of the real world. However, gentle reader, academic ideas that are taught and accepted as gospel by 99% of the professors have real-world consequences. Where does your money manager stand on these topics? It does make a difference. And now, let’s jump into James’s speech.
Six impossible things before breakfast, or how EMH has damaged our industry
What follows is the text of a speech to be delivered at the CFA UK conference on “What ever happened to EMH”. Dedicated to Peter Bernstein - Peter will be fondly remembered and sadly missed by all who work in investment. Although he and I often ended up on opposite sides of the debates, he was true gentleman and always a pleasure to discuss ideas with. I am sure Peter would have disagreed with some, much and perhaps all of my speech today, but I’m equally sure he would have enjoyed the discussion.
The Dead Parrot of Finance
Given that this is the UK division of the CFA I am sure that The Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch will be familiar to all of you. The EMH is the financial equivalent of the Dead Parrot. I feel like the John Cleese character (an exceedingly annoyed customer who recently purchased a parrot) returning to the petshop to berate the owner:
“He’s passed away, This parrot is no more, He has ceased to be! He’s expired and gone to meet his maker. He’s a stiff! Bereft of Life, he rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed him to the perch he’d be pushing up daisies! His metabolic processes are now history! He’s off the twig! He kicked the bucket. He’s shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!!!”
The shopkeeper (picture Gene Fama if you will) keeps insisting the parrot is simply resting. Incidentally, the Dead Parrot Sketch takes on even more meaning when you recall Stephen Ross’s words that “All it takes to turn a parrot into a learned financial economist is just one word - arbitrage”...
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