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The paper tests the German stock market for excess volatility and stock price overvaluation with regard to the simple efficient markets model and the cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio. Long-term historical stock market data of 49 years are used to calculate the detrended real price and ex-post value and data of 39 years to compute the cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio, both from the sample of two German automotive stocks. The empirical evidence provided by the analysis points to excess market volatility and confirms the theory of overvalued stocks, which is linked to the bubble theory. This indicates that price fluctuations cannot be justified only by changes in fundamental values as claimed by the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The German stock market therefore shows inefficiency.
This thesis talks about the relation between investor sentiment, stock return and trading volume in the German stock market. Six Granger causality tests were performed in order to determine, whether one of the above mentioned factors is indicative of the others. The results imply that investor sentiment is indicative of both, stock return and trading volume in the specified time period. However, there is no further significant evidence for other relations among the variables. The results are mostly in line with the literature available on this topic and back up the importance of the concept of investor sentiment as investor sentiment delivers an attempt to explain why investors behave irrationally on the stock market. Hence, the factors influencing investor sentiment should be subject to further research in order to gain a broader understanding of the topic.