Short-term market efficiency in the futures markets: TOPIX futures and 10-year JGB futures

This paper examines the effect of the past price information on the two major futures contracts traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange: the TOPIX futures and the 10-year JGB futures. The unique 90-min lunch break on the exchange creates two mini-sessions in each calendar-trading day. This paper compares these contracts between the morning and afternoon sessions. In addition, percentage-returns and tick-size-returns are used to measure the intraday price movements following past price performance. These futures contracts present evidence of short-term market inefficiency over the period 1994 to 2003.