I think this is based on a misunderstanding of EMH. There’s no claim that the efficient price matches some other calculated “fair” or “value-based” price or whatever metric you think is violated. There is only the claim that all available information is incorporated into the price, so there’s no exploitable (predictable) variance. Except private information, and by exploiting that, you incorporate it into the price.
There ARE good arguments against the EMH, including illiquidity/thin-ness, and large-scale mis-modeling (where a significant portion of the market is ignoring or mis-using public information). “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” is age-old advice, and pretty darned valid.
But this article doesn’t seem to make those arguments very well.
There is only the claim that all available information is incorporated into the price, so there’s no exploitable (predictable) variance.
The author gives a specific example of an exploitable price: The stock of Hong Kong Land, where the underlying real estate assets are being priced at 25 cents on the dollar because they’re packaged into a listed equity.
His claim is that anyone buying this equity at its current price is exploiting the market by a factor of 4x by achieving an equity-like 10%/yr return, but with the low risk/volatility of a 2-4% real estate asset or close.
He claims that this price inefficiency persists because there aren’t many people in a position to hunt for and invest in these kinds of arbitrages, because funds often structurally restrict themselves to investing in one type of asset class (i.e. leaky abstraction). So in this case, the inefficiency persists because there are not enough fund managers like himself: competent enough to recognize attractive real estate investments but not structurally limited to the Real Estate asset category.
I think this is based on a misunderstanding of EMH. There’s no claim that the efficient price matches some other calculated “fair” or “value-based” price or whatever metric you think is violated. There is only the claim that all available information is incorporated into the price, so there’s no exploitable (predictable) variance. Except private information, and by exploiting that, you incorporate it into the price.
There ARE good arguments against the EMH, including illiquidity/thin-ness, and large-scale mis-modeling (where a significant portion of the market is ignoring or mis-using public information). “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” is age-old advice, and pretty darned valid.
But this article doesn’t seem to make those arguments very well.
The author gives a specific example of an exploitable price: The stock of Hong Kong Land, where the underlying real estate assets are being priced at 25 cents on the dollar because they’re packaged into a listed equity.
His claim is that anyone buying this equity at its current price is exploiting the market by a factor of 4x by achieving an equity-like 10%/yr return, but with the low risk/volatility of a 2-4% real estate asset or close.
He claims that this price inefficiency persists because there aren’t many people in a position to hunt for and invest in these kinds of arbitrages, because funds often structurally restrict themselves to investing in one type of asset class (i.e. leaky abstraction). So in this case, the inefficiency persists because there are not enough fund managers like himself: competent enough to recognize attractive real estate investments but not structurally limited to the Real Estate asset category.