Analyzing the efficiency of pricing in government exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Tehran Stock Exchange

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a major innovation in all global financial markets since the first of these funds was launched in 1989 in the Canadian stock market. It was then introduced to the US market in 1993. In our country, too, we are at the turning point of launching investment funds from 1992 onwards. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the pricing efficiency of government funds with the approach of positivist-deductive research philosophy in which data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted to examine the answers to questions. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression has been used to analyze pricing efficiency and sustainability. The results show that government ETFs are not well designed for investors due to diversity and are probably not marketable well due to low trading volume and market price delays in reflecting net asset value (NAV). On the other hand, these funds are traded at a lower value than their NAVs on average, and the deviation of ETF prices from NAV (permium or discount) for the financial intermediation fund until the third day and for the refining fund until the second day from It does not disappear. The results also showed that between the volume of government ETF transactions and deviations; there was a positive and significant relationship between ETF returns and simultaneous deviations and finally a negative and significant relationship between returns and deviations with interruption. These findings can be interpreted as evidence of the weak-form efficiency of government ETFs.