The Profitability of Technical Analysis

Download or read book The Profitability of Technical Analysis written by Cheol-Ho Park and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this report is to review the evidence on the profitability of technical analysis. The empirical literature is categorized into two groups, quot;earlyquot; and quot;modernquot; studies, according to the characteristics of testing procedures. Early studies indicated that technical trading strategies were profitable in foreign exchange markets and futures markets, but not in stock markets before the 1980s. Modern studies indicated that technical trading strategies consistently generated economic profits in a variety of speculative markets at least until the early 1990s. Among a total of 92 modern studies, 58 studies found positive results regarding technical trading strategies, while 24 studies obtained negative results. Ten studies indicated mixed results. Despite the positive evidence on the profitability of technical trading strategies, it appears that most empirical studies are subject to various problems in their testing procedures, e.g., data snooping, ex post selection of trading rules or search technologies, and difficulties in estimation of risk and transaction costs. Future research must address these deficiencies in testing in order to provide conclusive evidence on the profitability of technical trading strategies.