Fair Value Vs Market Price
There are two schools of thought about the relation between the market price and fair value in any kind of market, but especially with regard to tradable assets:
- The efficient market hypothesis asserts that, in a well organized, reasonably transparent market, the market price is generally equal to or close to the fair value, as investors react quickly to incorporate new information about relative scarcity, utility, or potential returns in their bids; see also Rational pricing.
- Behavioral finance asserts that the market price often diverges from fair value because of various, common cognitive biases among buyers or sellers. However, even proponents of behavioral finance generally acknowledge that behavioral anomalies that may cause such a divergence often do so in ways that are unpredictable, chaotic, or otherwise difficult to capture in a sustainably profitable trading strategy, especially when accounting for transaction costs.
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Famous quotes containing the words fair, market and/or price:
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—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
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the madhouse of the inhuman
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With the wolves of the market place
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—Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941)
“One has to have run a household before one can know the price of rice and firewood, and one has to have raised children before one can understand a parent’s love.”
—Chinese proverb.