IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/aosoci/v34y2009i2p206-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identification through technical analysis: A study of charting and UK non-professional investors

Author

Listed:
  • Roscoe, Philip
  • Howorth, Carole

Abstract

The usefulness of technical analysis, or charting, has been questioned because it flies in the face of the 'random walk' and tests present conflicting results. We examine chartists' decision-making techniques and derive a taxonomy of charting strategies based on investors' market ontologies and calculative strategies. This distinguishes between trend-seekers and pattern-seekers, and trading as a system or an art. We argue that interpretative activity plays a more important role than previously thought and suggest that charting's main appeal for users lies in its power as a heuristic device regardless of its effectiveness at generating returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Roscoe, Philip & Howorth, Carole, 2009. "Identification through technical analysis: A study of charting and UK non-professional investors," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 206-221, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:34:y:2009:i:2:p:206-221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361-3682(08)00035-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Park, Cheol-Ho & Irwin, Scott H., 2004. "The Profitability of Technical Analysis: A Review," AgMAS Project Research Reports 37487, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics.
    2. Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1990. "The Noise Trader Approach to Finance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 19-33, Spring.
    3. Zaloom, Caitlin, 2006. "Out of the Pits," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226978130, Febrero.
    4. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    6. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. "Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-1617, December.
    7. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    8. De Bondt, Werner F. M., 1998. "A portrait of the individual investor," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 831-844, May.
    9. Bloomfield, Robert & Libby, Robert & Nelson, Mark W., 1999. "Confidence and the welfare of less-informed investors," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 623-647, November.
    10. repec:pri:cepsud:91malkiel is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Andrew W. Lo & Harry Mamaysky & Jiang Wang, 2000. "Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1705-1765, August.
    12. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    13. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    14. Menkhoff, Lukas, 1997. "Examining the Use of Technical Currency Analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(4), pages 307-318, October.
    15. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    16. repec:bla:jfinan:v:55:y:2000:i:4:p:1705-1770 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Richard G. Barker, 1999. "Survey and Market-based Evidence of Industry-dependence in Analysts' Preferences Between the Dividend Yield and Price-earnings Ratio Valuation Models," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3-4), pages 393-418.
    18. Weimin Lui & Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 1999. "The Profitability of Momentum Investing," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(9-10), pages 1043-1091.
    19. Hon, Mark T. & Tonks, Ian, 2003. "Momentum in the UK stock market," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 43-70, February.
    20. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    21. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    22. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 59-82, Winter.
    23. Alex Preda, 2007. "The Sociological Approach To Financial Markets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 506-533, July.
    24. Donaldson, R. Glen & Kim, Harold Y., 1993. "Price Barriers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 313-330, September.
    25. Weimin Lui & Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 1999. "The Profitability of Momentum Investing," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(9‐10), pages 1043-1091, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ariane Agunsoye, 2021. "‘Locked in the Rat Race’: Variegated financial subjectivities in the United Kingdom," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(7), pages 1828-1848, October.
    2. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & Danture Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Post-Print hal-01661685, HAL.
    3. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & D. T. Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-00676570, HAL.
    4. Lukasz Prorokowski, 2011. "Trading strategies of individual investors in times of financial crisis," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(1), pages 34-50, April.
    5. Ha Che-Ngoc & Nga Do-Thi & Thao Nguyen-Trang, 2023. "Profitability of Ichimoku-Based Trading Rule in Vietnam Stock Market in the Context of the COVID-19 Outbreak," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 62(4), pages 1781-1799, December.
    6. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & D. T. Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Post-Print hal-00676570, HAL.
    7. Marie Caussimont & David Carassus, 2015. "L’audit financier en contexte territorial : vers un audit de performance de la gestion locale ?," Post-Print hal-02141946, HAL.
    8. Ebert, Sebastian & Hilpert, Christian, 2019. "Skewness preference and the popularity of technical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    9. Vassili Joannides & Nicolas Berland & Danture Wickramasinghe, 2010. "Post-Hofstede diversity/cultural studies: what contributions to accounting knowledge?," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-01661685, HAL.
    10. Tai Vo-Van & Ha Che-Ngoc & Nghiep Le-Dai & Thao Nguyen-Trang, 2022. "A New Strategy for Short-Term Stock Investment Using Bayesian Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 887-911, February.
    11. Jin, Xiaoye, 2021. "What do we know about the popularity of technical analysis in foreign exchange markets? A skewness preference perspective," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brice Corgnet & Cary Deck & Mark DeSantis & David Porter, 2022. "Forecasting Skills in Experimental Markets: Illusion or Reality?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5216-5232, July.
    2. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    3. Park, Cheol-Ho & Irwin, Scott H., 2004. "The Profitability Of Technical Trading Rules In Us Futures Markets: A Data Snooping Free Test," 2004 Conference, April 19-20, 2004, St. Louis, Missouri 19011, NCR-134 Conference on Applied Commodity Price Analysis, Forecasting, and Market Risk Management.
    4. Rompotis, Gerasimos G., 2011. "Testing weak-form efficiency of exchange traded funds market," MPRA Paper 36020, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Roland Rothenstein, 2018. "Quantification of market efficiency based on informational-entropy," Papers 1812.02371, arXiv.org.
    6. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    7. Ushna Akber & Nabeel Muhammad, 2014. "Is Pakistan Stock Market Moving towards Weak-Form Efficiency? Evidence from The Karachi Stock Exchange and the Random Walk Nature of Free-Float of Shares of KSE 30 Index," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 4(6), pages 808-836, June.
    8. Akber, Ushna & Muhammad, Nabeel, 2013. "Is Pakistan Stock Market moving towards Weak-form efficiency? Evidence from the Karachi Stock Exchange and the Random Walk Nature of free-float of shares of KSE 30 Index," MPRA Paper 49128, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Menkhoff, Lukas, 2010. "The use of technical analysis by fund managers: International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2573-2586, November.
    10. Thomas Holtfort, 2019. "From standard to evolutionary finance: a literature survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 207-232, June.
    11. Supriya Maheshwari & Raj S. Dhankar, 2017. "Profitability of Volume-based Momentum and Contrarian Strategies in the Indian Stock Market," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 18(4), pages 974-992, August.
    12. Asif, Raheel & Frömmel, Michael, 2022. "Testing Long memory in exchange rates and its implications for the adaptive market hypothesis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 593(C).
    13. Cheol‐Ho Park & Scott H. Irwin, 2007. "What Do We Know About The Profitability Of Technical Analysis?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 786-826, September.
    14. Bell, Peter N, 2013. "New Testing Procedures to Assess Market Efficiency with Trading Rules," MPRA Paper 46701, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Taufiq Choudhry & Ranadeva Jayasekera, 2015. "Level of efficiency in the UK equity market: empirical study of the effects of the global financial crisis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 213-242, February.
    16. Stephan Schulmeister, 2000. "Technical Analysis and Exchange Rate Dynamics," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 25857.
    17. Admin Starcevic & Timothy Rodgers, 2011. "Market Efficiency within the German Stock Market: A Comparative Study of the Relative Efficiencies of the DAX, MDAX, SDAX and ASE Indices," International Econometric Review (IER), Econometric Research Association, vol. 3(1), pages 25-37, April.
    18. Ziliotto, Arianna & Serati, Massimiliano, 2015. "The semi-strong efficiency debate: In search of a new testing framework," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 412-438.
    19. Svitlana Galeshchuk, 2017. "Technological bias at the exchange rate market," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2-3), pages 80-86, April.
    20. Paul Handro & Bogdan Dima, 2024. "Analyzing Financial Markets Efficiency: Insights from a Bibliometric and Content Review," Journal of Financial Studies, Institute of Financial Studies, vol. 16(9), pages 119-175, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:34:y:2009:i:2:p:206-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/aos .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.