TESTING FOR WEAK FORM EFFICIENCY IN NEW AGRICULTURAL FUTURES MARKETS: SOME UK EVIDENCE

This paper examines the hypothesis that new agricultural futures markets are weak form inefficient in their early stages of development and that they exhibit a process of adjustment towards efficiency over time. The concept of pricing efficiency in futures markets is outlined and the hypothesis is tested with respect to the UK soyabean meal, potato and pigmeat futures markets, using serial correlation, runs and spectral analysis. The results indicate that over the time period of the contract samples these markets exhibit some weak form inefficiency; however there is no clear evidence of an adjustment process.