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The efficient market hypothesis (the idea that the market is by definition perfectly valued at every moment) is highly controversial, and actively rejected by many finance and economics experts of all political views.


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My point is simply a tautology: the price is the price. Now the price may change, someone may have their thumb on the scale, there may be shill bidders driving sentiment, etc. But at the moment you get a bid/ask spread, that is what you get.

Practically speaking, I personally don't believe the efficient market hypothesis due to the very obvious meddling by political actors, central banks, national treasuries, etc. Behavioral finance has also consistently demonstrated that humans do not react rationally in markets.


Please add 'capitalists' to that list of meddlers, to be fair. ;-)

That may have been your point, but it's not what you said. "Perfectly valued" means that the price is what it should be (for some definition of "should").

"Perfectly valued" to me means that at that moment, the price reflects the actions of everyone. It includes the actions of all buyers/sellers who choose to participate and not participate, the regulators, as well as the meddlers.

My point is a pedantic one referring to the OP using the word "overvalued". The market price is never over/under valued. It is merely the market price at that moment.


Your definition of price and value, while correct to a certain standard, give no illustrative power nor does it lend itself to analysis or discussion.

As you said, it is merely tautological.


Your point sucks.

Not the OP, but those finance and economics experts are contradicted by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his belief that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

In other words I think it's futile to try to attach moral attributes (for example saying that a market is "best" valued at the moment or not) to things like financial transactions, which don't have any intrinsic moral values associated with them. Otherwise we risk talking about long-dead German philosophers when trying to illuminate the problem.


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