Beginning of Essay
According to the Efficient Market Theory, it should be extremely difficult for an investor to develop a "system" that consistently selects stocks that exhibit higher than normal returns over a period of time. It should also not be possible for a company to "cook t ....

Middle of Essay
.... of "insider" information, sales of stocks and bonds will not depress prices, and companies cannot "cook the books" to artificially manipulate stock and bond prices. However, information technology and market dynamics are based upon the workings of ordinary people and diverse organizations, neither of which are arguably efficient nor consistent. Therefore, we have the basic contradiction of EMT: How can a theory based on objective mechanical efficiency hold up when applied to subjective human inefficiency? As a case in point, America Online (AOL) offers a classic example of how investors can be misled by a company that uses the market system agai ....