What Trading Places teaches you about market efficiency

The 1983 comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd is good reminder of why investors should always keep a level head, says Matthew Partridge.

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(Image credit: Credit: AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo)

Trading Places is a 1983 comedy starring Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy (pictured), and Jamie Lee Curtis. The Mortimer Brothers, who own a commodity brokerage, decide to settle an argument about nature versus nurture by having their star trader, Louis Winthorpe III (Ackroyd), framed for theft, and replaced with homeless conman Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy).

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri