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CFA Institute

Random Walks in Stock Market Prices


Author(s): Eugene F. Fama
Source: Financial Analysts Journal, Vol. 51, No. 1, 50 Years in Review (Jan. - Feb., 1995), pp.
75-80
Published by: CFA Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4479810 .
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1965-1974

Random Walks in Stock Market Prices


Eugene F. Fama

For many years economists,statisticians,and itself, i.e., past patterns of price behavior in indi-
teachers of finance have been interested in vidual securities will tend to recur in the future.
developing and testing models of stock price be- Thus the way to predict stock prices (and, of
havior. One important model that has evolved course, increase one's potential gains) is to de-
from this research is the theory of random walks. velop a familiarity with past patterns of price
This theory casts serious doubt on many other behavior in order to recognize situations of likely
methods for describing and predicting stock price recurrence.
behavior-methods that have considerable popu- Essentially, then, chartist techniques attempt
larityoutside the academicworld. Forexample, we to use knowledge of the past behavior of a price
shall see later that if the random walk theory is an series to predict the probable future behavior of
accurate description of reality, then the various the series. A statistician would characterizesuch
"technical"or "chartist"procedures for predicting techniques as assuming that successive price
stock prices are completely without value. changes in individual securities are dependent.
In general the theory of random walks raises That is, the various chartist theories assume that
challenging questions for anyone who has more the sequenceof price changes priorto any given day
than a passing interest in understanding the be- is importantin predictingthe price change for that
havior of stock prices. Unfortunately, however, day.1
most discussions of the theory have appeared in The techniques of the chartist have always
technical academic journals and in a form which been surroundedby a certaindegree of mysticism,
the non-mathematicianwould usually find incom- however, and as a result most market profession-
prehensible. This articledescribes, brieflyand sim- als have found them suspect. Thus it is probably
ply, the theory of random walks and some of the safe to say that the pure chartist is relatively rare
important issues it raises concerning the work of among stock market analysts. Rather the typical
marketanalysts. To preserve brevity some aspects analyst adheres to a technique known as funda-
of the theory and its implications are omitted. mental analysis or the intrinsicvalue method. The
More complete (and also more technical) discus- assumption of the fundamental analysis approach
sions of the theory of random walks are available is that at any point in time an individual security
elsewhere; hopefully the introduction provided has an intrinsic value (or in the terms of the
here will encourage the reader to examine one of economist, an equilibrium price) which depends
the more rigorous and lengthy works listed at the on the earning potential of the security. The earn-
end of this article. ing potential of the security depends in turn on
such fundamental factors as quality of manage-
COMMON FORPREDICTING
TECHNIQUES ment, outlook for the industry and the economy,
STOCKMARKET
PRICES etc.
In order to put the theory of random walks into Througha carefulstudy of these fundamental
perspective we first discuss, in brief and general factors the analyst should, in principle, be able to
terms, the two approaches to predicting stock determine whether the actual price of a security is
prices that are commonly espoused by market above or below its intrinsic value. If actual prices
professionals. These are (1) "chartist"or "techni- tend to move toward intrinsic values, then at-
cal" theories and (2) the theory of fundamental or tempting to determine the intrinsic value of a
intrinsic value analysis. security is equivalent to making a prediction of its
The basic assumption of all the chartist or future price; and this is the essence of the predic-
technical theories is that history tends to repeat tive procedure implicit in fundamental analysis.
THETHEORY
OF RANDOM
WALKS
Reprintedfrom Financial Analysts Journal (SeptemberlOctober Chartist theories and the theory of fundamental
1965):55-59. analysis are really the province of the market

Financial Analysts Journal / January-February1995 75

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1965-1974
professional and to a large extent teachers of on the industry's product by a foreign country, an
finance. Historically, however, there has been a increase in industrial production or any other
large body of academic people, primarily econo- actual or anticipatedchange in a factor which is
mists and statisticians, who adhere to a radically likely to affect the company's prospects.
different approach to market analysis-the theory In an efficient market, on theaverage,competi-
of random walks in stock market prices. The re- tion will cause the full effects of new information
mainder of this articlewill be devoted to a discus- on intrinsicvalues to be reflected "instantaneous-
sion of this theory and its majorimplications. ly" in actualprices. In fact, however, because there
Random walk theorists usually stray from the is vagueness or uncertainty surrounding new in-
premise that the major security exchanges are formation, "instantaneous adjustment" really has
good examples of "efficient" markets. An "effi- two implications. First, actual prices will initially
cient" market is defined as a market where there overadjustto changes in intrinsicvalues as often as
are large numbers of rational, profit-maximizers they will underadjust. Second, the lag in the
actively competing, with each trying to predict complete adjustment of actual prices to successive
future market values of individual securities, and new intrinsicvalues will itself be an independent,
where important current information is almost random variable with the adjustment of actual
freely availableto all participants. prices sometimes preceding the occurrenceof the
In an efficient market, competition among the event which is the basis of the change in intrinsic
many intelligent participants leads to a situation values (i.e., when the event is anticipated by the
where, at any point in time, actual prices of indi- market before it actually occurs) and sometimes
vidual securities already reflect the effects of infor- following.
mation based both on events that have already This means that the "instantaneous adjust-
occurred and on events which, as of now, the ment" property of an efficient marketimplies that
marketexpects to take place in the future. In other successive price changes in individual securities
words, in an efficient market at any point in time will be independent. A market where successive
the actualprice of a securitywill be a good estimate price changes in individual securities are indepen-
of its intrinsic value. dent is, by definition, a randomwalk market.Most
Now in an uncertainworld the intrinsicvalue simply the theory of random walks implies that a
of a security can never be determined exactly. series of stock price changes has no memory-the
Thus there is always room for disagreement past history of the series cannot be used to predict
among market participants concerning just what the future in any meaningfulway. The future path
the intrinsicvalue of an individual security is, and of the price level of a security is no more predict-
such disagreement will give rise to discrepancies able than the path of a series of cumulatedrandom
between actual prices and intrinsic values. In an numbers.
efficientmarket, however, the actions of the many It is unlikely that the random walk hypothesis
competing participants should cause the actual provides an exact description of the behavior of
price of a security to wander randomly about its stock market prices. For practicalpurposes, how-
intrinsicvalue. If the discrepanciesbetween actual ever, the model may be acceptableeven though it
prices and intrinsic values are systematic rather does not fit the facts exactly. Thus although suc-
than random in nature, then knowledge of this cessive price changes may not be strictlyindepen-
should help intelligent market participantsto bet- dent, the actual amount of dependence may be so
ter predict the path by which actual prices will small as to be unimportant.
move towards intrinsic values. When the many What should be classified as unimportantde-
intelligent tradersattempt to take advantageof this pends, of course, on the question at hand. For the
knowledge, however, they will tend to neutralize stock market trader or investor the criterion is
such systematic behavior in price series. Although obvious: The independence assumption of the
uncertainty concerning intrinsic values will re- random walk model is valid as long as knowledge
main, actual prices of securities will wander ran- of the past behavior of the series of price changes
domly about their intrinsic values. cannot be used to increase expected gains. More
Of course intrinsic values can themselves specifically,if successive price changes for a given
change across time as a result of new information. security are independent, there is no problem in
The new information may involve such things as timing purchases and sales of that security. A
the success of a currentresearchand development simple policy of buying and holding the security
project, a change in management, a tariffimposed will be as good as any more complicated mechan-

76 FinancialAnalysts Journal / January-February1995

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1965-1974
ical procedurefor timing purchases and sales. This sign, and the spectral analysis techniques of
implies that, for investment purposes, the inde- Granger and Morgenstern,7 and Godfrey, Gran-
pendence assumption of the random walk model ger, and Morgenstern8also support the indepen-
is an adequate description of reality as long as the dence assumption of the random walk model.
actual degree of dependence in series of price We should emphasize, however, that al-
changes is not sufficient to make the expected though the statisticaltechniques mentioned above
profits of any more "sophisticated" mechanical have been the common tools used in testing in-
trading rule or chartist technique greater than the dependence, the chartistor technicaltheoristprob-
expected profits under a naive buy-and-hold pol- ably would not consider them adequate. Forexam-
icy. ple, he would not consider either serial correla-
tions or runs analyses as adequate tests of whether
EMPIRICAL
EVIDENCE
ONINDEPENDENCE the past history of series of price changes can be
Over the years a number of empiricaltests of the used to increase the investor's expected profits.
random walk theory have been performed; in- The simple linear relationships that underlie the
deed, so many that it is not possible to discuss serial correlationmodel are much too unsophisti-
them adequately here. Thereforein describingthe cated to pick up the complicated "patterns" that
empirical evidence we limit ourselves to a brief the chartistsees in stock prices. Similarly,the runs
discussion of the different approaches employed tests are much too rigid in their manner of deter-
and the general conclusions that have evolved. mining the duration of upward and downward
The main concern of empiricalresearchon the movements in prices. In particular:in runs-testing,
random walk model has been to test the hypothe- a run is considered as terminatedwhenever there
sis that successive price changes are independent. is a change in sign in the sequence of successive
Two different approaches have been followed. price changes, regardless of the size of the price
First there is the approach that relies primarilyon change that causes the change in sign. The chartist
common statistical tools such as serial correlation would like to have a more sophisticated method
coefficients and analyses of runs of consecutive for identifying movements-a method which does
price changes of the same sign. If the statistical not always predict the termination of the move-
tests tend to support the assumption of indepen- ment simply because the price level has tempo-
dence, one then infersthat there are probably no rarilychanged direction.
mechanical trading rules or chartist techniques, These criticisms of common statistical tools
based solely on patterns in the past history of price have not gone unheeded, however. For example,
changes, which would make the expected profits Alexander'sfiltertechnique9is an attempt to apply
of the investor greater than they would be with a more sophisticated criteriato the identificationof
simple buy-and-hold policy. The second approach moves. Although the filter technique does not
to testing independence proceeds by testing di- correspondexactly to any well-known chartistthe-
rectly different mechanical trading rules to see ory, it is closely related to such things as the Dow
whether or not they provide profits greater than Theory. Thus, the profitabilityof the filter tech-
buy-and-hold. nique can be used to make inferences concerning
Researchto date has tended to concentrateon the potential profitabilityof other mechanicaltrad-
the first or statisticalapproach to testing indepen- ing rules.
dence; the results have been consistent and im- A filterof, say, 5 percent is defined as follows:
pressive. I know of no study in which standard if the daily closing price of a particularsecurity
statistical tools have produced evidence of impor- moves up at least 5 percent, buy and hold the
tant dependence in series of successive price security until its price moves down at least 5
changes. In general, these studies (and there are percent from a subsequent high, at which time
many of them) have tended to uphold the theory simultaneously sell and go short. The short posi-
of random walks. This is true, for example, of the tion is maintaineduntil the daily closing price rises
serial correlation tests of Cootner,2 Fama,3 Ken- at least 5 percentabove a subsequent low, at which
dall,4 and Moore.5 In all of these studies, the time one should simultaneously cover and buy.
sample serial correlationcoefficientscomputed for Moves less than 5 percent in either direction are
successive price changes were extremely close to ignored.
zero, which is evidence against important depen- It is, of course, unnecessary to limit the size of
dence in the changes. Similarly, Fama's6analysis the filter to 5 percent. In fact, ProfessorAlexander
of runs of successive price changes of the same has reported tests of the filter technique for filters

Financial Analysts Journal / January-February1995 77

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1965-1974
ranging in size from 1 percent to 50 percent. The better than the investor who follows a simple
tests cover differenttime periods from 1897to 1959 buy-and-hold policy as long as he can more
and involve daily closing prices for two indices, quickly identify situations where there are non-
The Dow-Jones Industrialsfrom 1897 to 1929 and negligible discrepanciesbetween actual prices and
Standardand Poor's Industrialsfrom 1929to 1959. intrinsicvalues than other analysts and investors,
In Alexander'slatest work,10it turns out that even and if he is better able to predict the occurrenceof
when the higher broker's commissions incurred important events and evaluate their effects on
under the filter rule are ignored, the filter tech- intrinsicvalues.
nique can not consistently beat the simple policy of If there are many analysts who are pretty good
buying and holding the indices for the different at this sort of thing, however, and if they have
periods tested. Elsewhere I have tested the filter considerableresources at their disposal, they help
technique on individual securities. Again the sim- narrow discrepancies between actual prices and
ple buy-and-hold method consistently beats the intrinsic values and cause actual prices, on the
profits produced by different size filters. It seems, average, to adjust "instantaneously"to changes in
then, that at least for the purposes of the individ- intrinsic values. That is, the existence of many
ual trader or investor, tests of the filter technique sophisticatedanalysts helps make the marketmore
also tend to support the random walk model. efficient which in turn implies a market which
conforms more closely to the random walk model.
OFTHERANDOM
IMPUCAT`ONS WALK Although the returns to these sophisticated ana-
THEORYFORCHARTIST
ANDINTRINSIC lysts may be quite high, they establish a marketin
VALUEANALYSIS which fundamental analysis is a fairly useless
As stated earlier, chartist theories implicitly as- procedure both for the average analyst and the
sume that there is dependence in series of succes- average investor. That is, in a random walk-
sive price changes. Thatis, the history of the series efficientmarket, on the average, a security chosen
can be used to make meaningful predictions con- by a mediocre analyst will produce a return no
cerning the future. On the other hand, the theory betterthan that obtained from a randomly selected
of random walks says that successive price security of the same general riskiness.
changes are independent, i.e., the past cannot be There probablyaren't many analysts (in fact, I
used to predict the future. Thus the two theories know of none) who would willingly concede that
are diametricallyopposed, and if, as the empirical they are no betterthan the "average"analyst. If all
evidence seems to suggest, the random walk the- analysts think they are better than average, how-
ory is valid, then chartist theories are akin to ever, this only means that their estimate of the
astrology and of no real value to the investor. average is biased downward. Fortunately,it is not
In an uncertainworld, however, no amount of necessary to judge an analyst solely by his claims.
empiricaltesting is sufficientto establish the valid- The discussion above provides a natural bench-
ity of a hypothesis beyond any shadow of doubt. markwith which we can evaluate his performance.
The chartist or technical theorist always has the In a random walk- efficient market at any
option of declaringthat the evidence in support of point in time the market price of a security will
the random walk theory is not sufficientto validate already reflect the judgments of many analysts
the theory. On the other hand, the chartist must concerning the relevance of currently available
admit that the evidence in favor of the random informationto the prospects of that security. Now
walk model is both consistent and voluminous, an individual analyst may feel that he has better
whereas there is precious little published discus- insights than those that are already implicit in the
sion of rigorous empirical tests of the various market price. For example, he may feel that a
technical theories. If the chartist rejects the evi- discrepancy between market price and intrinsic
dence in favor of the random walk model, his value exists for some security, or he may think the
position is weak if his own theories have not been intrinsic value of the security is itself about to
subjected to equally rigorous tests. This, I believe, change because of some impending piece of new
is the challenge that the random walk theory informationwhich is not yet generally available.
makes to the technician. These "insights" of the analyst are of no real
There is nothing in the above discussion, value, however, unless they are eventually borne
however, which suggests that superiorfundamen- out in the market, that is, unless the actual market
tal or intrinsicvalue analysis is useless in a random price eventually moves in the predicted direction.
walk-efficient market. In fact the analyst will do In other words, if the analyst can make meaningful

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1965-1974
judgments concerning the purchase and sale of differentpossible tax bracketsof the investor, first
individual securities, his choices should consis- under the assumption that all dividends are rein-
tently outperform randomly selected securities of vested in the month paid, and then under the
the same general riskiness. It must be stressed, assumption that dividends are not reinvested.
however, that the analyst must consistentlypro- A possible procedure for the analyst is to
duce results better than random selection, since, compare returns for given time periods earned by
by the nature of uncertainty, for any given time portfolioshe has managed with the returnsearned
period he has about a 50 percent chance of doing for the same time periods by the Fisher-Lorie
better than random selection even if his powers of "randomlyselected" portfolios. It is important to
analysis are completely nonexistent. Moreover, note, however, that this will be a valid test proce-
not only must the analyst do consistently better dure only if the portfolios managed by the analyst
than random selection, but he must beat random had about the same degree of riskiness as the
selection by an amount which is at least sufficient Fisher-Lorie"market"portfolios. If this is not the
to cover the cost of the resources (including his case, the Fisher-Lorieresults will not provide a
own time) which are expended in the process of proper benchmark. In order to make a proper
carryingout his more complicatedselection proce- comparison between the results produced by the
dures. analyst and a random selection policy, it will be
What we propose, then, is that the analyst necessary to define and study the behavior of
subject his performanceto a rigorous comparison portfolios of randomly selected securities, where
with a random selection procedure. One simple these portfolios are selected in such a way that
practical way of comparing the results produced they have about the same degree of riskiness as
by an analyst with a random selection procedureis those managed by the analyst.
the following: Every time the analyst recommends If the claims of analysts concerningthe advan-
a security for purchase (or sale), another security tages of fundamental analysis have any basis in
of the same general riskiness is chosen randomly. fact, the tests suggested above would seem to be
A future date is then chosen at which time the easy to pass. In fact, however, the only "analysts"
results produced by the two securities will be that have so far undergone these tests are open
compared. Even if the analyst is no better than the end mutual funds. In their appeals to the public,
random selection procedure, in any given compar- mutual funds usually make two basic claims: (1)
ison there is still a 50 percent chance that the because it pools the resourcesof many individuals,
security he has chosen will outperform the ran- a fund can diversify much more effectively than
domly selected security. After the game has been the average, small investor; and (2) because of its
played for a while, however, and the results of management'scloseness to the market, the fund is
many differentcomparisonsare accumulated,then better able to detect "good buys" in individual
it will become clear whether the analyst is worth securities. In most cases the first claim is probably
his salt or not. true. The second, however, implies that mutual
In many circumstances,however, the primary funds provide a higher return than would be
concern is with the performance of a portfolio earned by a portfolio of randomly selected securi-
rather than with the performance of individual ties. In a separate paper12I reported the results of
securities in the portfolio. In this situation one a study which suggest that if the initial loading
would want to compare the performance of the charges of mutual funds are ignored, on the aver-
portfolio in question with that of a portfolio of age the funds do about as well as a randomly
randomly selected securities. A useful benchmark selected portfolio. If one takes into account the
for randomly selected portfolioshas been provided higher initial loading charges of the funds, how-
by Fisher and Lorie.11They computed rates of ever, on the averagethe random investment policy
return for investments in common stocks on the outperforms the funds. In addition, these results
New YorkStock exchange for various time periods would seem to be consistent with those of the now
from 1926 to 1960. The basic assumption in all of famous Whartonstudy of mutual funds.13
their computations is that at the beginning of each These adverse results with respect to mutual
period studied the investor puts an equal amount funds have tended to lead random walk theorists
of money in each common stock listed at that time to feel that other financial institutions, and most
on the Exchange. This amounts to random sam- professionalinvestment advisers as well, probably
pling where the sampling is, of course, exhaustive. do no better than random selection. Institutions
Different rates of return are then computed for and analysts can only dispel such doubts by sub-

Financial Analysts Journal / January-February1995 79

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1965-1974
mitting their performance to a rigorous compari- ever, is more involved. If the random walk theory
son with a random selection procedure. is valid and if security exchanges are "efficient"
markets,then stock prices at any point in time will
CONCLUSION representgood estimates of intrinsicor fundamen-
In sum the theory of random walks in stock market tal values. Thus, additional fundamental analysis
prices presents important challenges to both the is of value only when the analyst has new infor-
chartist and the proponent of fundamental analy- mation which was not fully considered in forming
sis. For the chartist, the challenge is straightfor- current market prices, or has new insights con-
ward. If the random walk model is a valid descrip- cerning the effects of generally available informa-
tion of reality, the work of the chartist, like that of tion which are not already implicit in current
the astrologer, is of no real value in stock market prices. If the analyst has neither better insights nor
analysis. The empirical evidence to date provides new information, he may as well forget about
strong support for the random walk model. In this fundamental analysis and choose securities by
light the only way the chartist can vindicate his some random selection procedure.
position is to show that he can consistentlyuse his In essence, the challenge of the random walk
techniques to make better than chance predictions theory to the proponent of fundamentalanalysis is
of stock prices. It is not enough for him to talk to show that his more complicatedprocedures are
mystically about patterns that he sees in the data. actually more profitable than a simple random
He must show that he can consistently use these selection policy. As in the case of the chartist, the
patterns to make meaningful predictions of future challenge is an empiricalone. The analyst cannot
prices. merely protest that he thinks the securities he
The challenge of the theory of random walks selects do better than randomly selected securities;
to the proponent of fundamental analysis, how- he must demonstrate that this is in fact the case.

FOOTNOTES
1. Probablythe best known example of the chartistapproach Random Walk Hypothesis of Stock Market Behavior,"
to predictingstock prices is the Dow Theory. Kyklos,vol. 17 (anuary 1964):1-30.
2. P.H. Cootner, "Stock Prices: Random vs. Systematic 9. S.S. Alexander,"PriceMovementsin SpeculativeMarkets:
Changes," IndustrialManagementReview, vol. 3 (Spring Trends or Random Walks," IndustrialManagement Reviewv,
1962):24-45. vol. 2 (May 1961):7-26and "PriceMovements in Specula-
3. E.F. Fama, "The Behavior of Stock Market Prices," The tive Markets:Trendsor RandomWalks,Number2," Indus-
Journalof Business,vol. 38 Uanuary1965):34-105. trialManagement Review,vol. 5 (Spring 1964):25-46.
4. M.G. Kendall, "The Analysis of EconomicTinmeSeries," 10. Alexander, "Price Movements in Speculative Markets:
Journalof the Royal StatisticalSociety, series A, vol. 96 Trendsor RandomWalks, Number 2."
(1953):11-25. 11. L. Fisherand J.H. Lorie, "Ratesof Returnon Investments
5. A. Moore, "A Statistical Analysis of Common Stock in Common Stocks," TheJournalof Business(January1964):
Prices,"Universtiyof ChicagoGraduateSchoolof Business 1-21.
Dissertation(1962). 12. Fama, "The Behaviorof Stock MarketPrices."
6. Fama, "The Behaviorof Stock MarketPrices." 13. "A Study of Mutual Funds," prepared by the Wharton
7. C.W.J.Grangerand 0. Morgenstern,"SpectralAnalysis of School of Finance and Commerce for the Securities and
New York Stock Market Prices," Kyklos,vol. 16 (January ExchangeCommission.Reportof the Committeeon Inter-
1963):1-27. state and Foreign Commerce. Washington:U.S. Govern-
8. M.D. Godfrey,C.W.J.Granger,and 0. Morgenstern,"The ment PrintingOffice (1962).

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