Market efficiency in the emerging and frontier markets of the MENA countries

Abstract

Daily and weekly market index returns were analyzed to examine market efficiency in emerging and frontier markets in MENA region. Based on a set of tests, autocorrelation, runs, unit root and multiple variance report tests, over a period of 7 years, our results show mixed results for different indices. However, emerging and frontier market and yield series indicate the lack of market efficiency. We find that daily and weekly market index returns do not follow random markets. We can conclude that investors can obtain the flow of arbitrage profits due to the inefficiency of the market belonging to these countries.