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CHAPTER 12
SOME LESSONS FROM CAPITAL
MARKET HISTORY
Answers to Concepts Review and Critical Thinking Questions
1. They all wish they had! Since they didn’t, it must have been the case that the stellar performance was
not foreseeable, at least not by most.
2. As in the previous question, it’s easy to see after the fact that the investment was terrible, but it probably
wasn’t so easy ahead of time.
3. No, stocks are riskier. Some investors are highly risk averse, and the extra possible return doesn’t attract
them relative to the extra risk.
4. On average, the only return that is earned is the required return—investors buy assets with returns in
excess of the required return (positive NPV), bidding up the price and thus causing the return to fall to
5. The market is not weak form efficient.
6. Yes, historical information is also public information; weak form efficiency is a subset of semi-strong
form efficiency.
7. Ignoring trading costs, on average, such investors merely earn what the market offers; stock investments
all have a zero NPV. If trading costs exist, then these investors lose by the amount of the costs.
8. Unlike gambling, the stock market is a positive sum game; everybody can win. Also, speculators
provide liquidity to markets and thus help to promote efficiency.
9. The EMH only says, within the bounds of increasingly strong assumptions about the information
processing of investors, that assets are fairly priced. An implication of this is that, on average, the
typical market participant cannot earn excessive profits from a particular trading strategy. However, that
10. a. If the market is not weak form efficient, then this information could be acted on and a profit earned
from following the price trend. Under (2), (3), and (4), this information is fully impounded in the
buy the stock “cheap” before the rest of the market discovers the financial statement anomaly.
Since (2) is stronger than (1), both imply that a profit opportunity exists; under (3) and (4), this
information is fully impounded in the current price and no profit opportunity exists.
c. Under (3), if the market is not strong form efficient, then this information could be used as a
profitable trading strategy, by noting the buying activity of the insiders as a signal that the stock is
underpriced or that good news is imminent. Since (1) and (2) are weaker than (3), all three imply
Solutions to Questions and Problems
NOTE: All end of chapter problems were solved using a spreadsheet. Many problems require multiple steps.
Due to space and readability constraints, when these intermediate steps are included in this solutions
manual, rounding may appear to have occurred. However, the final answer for each problem is found
without rounding during any step in the problem.
Basic
1. The return of any asset is the increase in price, plus any dividends or cash flows, all divided by the
initial price. The return of this stock is:
2. The dividend yield is the dividend divided by price at the beginning of the period price, so:
Dividend yield = $2.40 / $91 = .0264 or 2.64%
3. Using the equation for total return, we find:
R = [($83 – 91) + 2.40] / $91 = –.0615 or –6.15%
