Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP (2010)
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderWhile this is a fun, the title is a little strong. There are three limitations (whuch apply to many papers about P=NP). 1. The market could still be efficient, because the situations which must arise to cause P vs NP problems are very complicated. In particular thry require very expensive indivisible things to buy, whereas in most situations we can treat things like shares as continuous with only a small error. 2. Markets could be efficient if P=NP and we…
This paper just gets me every time I see it. It really doesn’t claim or do much that isn’t already quite obvious (it also has the other problem of going on completely unrelated tangents.) First, it does this funny thing where it “proves” that EMH (or market efficiency) is NP-hard, by building gadgets based on options and then using them to “embed” 3-SAT. This is fine except (a) we often don’t care about an exact solution (so we need approximation-hardness…
A while ago I studied a paper where the author proposes using high frequency trading to exploit price patterns. If that can be done profitably it would mean markets aren't even weak form efficient! Lately however there have been emerging views that "efficiency" is not black or white but a continuum. i.e The market will only be efficient enough such that the marginal cost of making the market more efficient is equal to the marginal benefit of doing so. Anyway…
The submission from 5 months ago with more than 80 comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2895474
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 676
- Total comments
- 488
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-02-14 | Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP | ryoshu | 6 | 2 |
| 2012-02-12 | Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP | kakashi_ | 9 | 1 |
| 2012-09-29 | Markets are efficient if and only if P = NPFirst breakout | confluence | 107 | 123 |
| 2012-10-03 | Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP | pppppo | 1 | 1 |
| 2017-12-26 | Markets are efficient if and only if P=NP (2010) | jweissman | 3 | 0 |
| 2018-06-01 | Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP (2010)Hall induction · Best thread | perculis | 332 | 191 |
| 2020-10-21 | Markets are efficient if and only if P=NP (2010)Latest 20+ point return | DarkContinent | 214 | 169 |
| 2022-05-16 | Markets Are Efficient If And Only If P = NP (2010) | optimalsolver | 4 | 1 |