IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v15y2008i2p199-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does intraday technical analysis in the U.S. equity market have value?

Author

Listed:
  • Marshall, Ben R.
  • Cahan, Rochester H.
  • Cahan, Jared M.

Abstract

This paper investigates whether intraday technical analysis is profitable in the U.S. equity market. Surveys of market participants indicate that they place more emphasis on technical analysis (and less on fundamental analysis) the shorter the time horizon; however, the technical analysis literature to date has focused on long-term technical trading rules. We find, using two bootstrap methodologies, that none of the 7846 popular technical trading rules we test are profitable after data snooping bias is taken into account. There is no evidence that the market is inefficient over this time horizon.

Suggested Citation

  • Marshall, Ben R. & Cahan, Rochester H. & Cahan, Jared M., 2008. "Does intraday technical analysis in the U.S. equity market have value?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 199-210, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:15:y:2008:i:2:p:199-210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927-5398(07)00058-8
    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. Hendrik Bessembinder & Kalok Chan, 1998. "Market Efficiency and the Returns to Technical Analysis," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 27(2), Summer.
    2. repec:bla:jfinan:v:55:y:2000:i:4:p:1705-1770 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Kenneth A. Kavajecz, 2004. "Technical Analysis and Liquidity Provision," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 1043-1071.
    4. Ryan Sullivan & Allan Timmermann & Halbert White, 1999. "Data‐Snooping, Technical Trading Rule Performance, and the Bootstrap," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1647-1691, October.
    5. Josef Lakonishok, Seymour Smidt, 1988. "Are Seasonal Anomalies Real? A Ninety-Year Perspective," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(4), pages 403-425.
    6. Charles J. Corrado & Suk-Hun Lee, 1992. "Filter Rule Tests Of The Economic Significance Of Serial Dependencies In Daily Stock Returns," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 15(4), pages 369-387, December.
    7. Mark J Ready, 2002. "Profits from Technical Trading Rules," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 31(3), Fall.
    8. Day, Theodore E. & Wang, Pingying, 2002. "Dividends, nonsynchronous prices, and the returns from trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 431-454, November.
    9. A. I. McLeod & W. K. Li, 1983. "Diagnostic Checking Arma Time Series Models Using Squared‐Residual Autocorrelations," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(4), pages 269-273, July.
    10. Lo, Andrew W & MacKinlay, A Craig, 1990. "Data-Snooping Biases in Tests of Financial Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(3), pages 431-467.
    11. Kwon, Ki-Yeol & Kish, Richard J., 2002. "A comparative study of technical trading strategies and return predictability: an extension of Brock, Lakonishok, and LeBaron (1992) using NYSE and NASDAQ indices," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 611-631.
    12. Lui, Yu-Hon & Mole, David, 1998. "The use of fundamental and technical analyses by foreign exchange dealers: Hong Kong evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 535-545, June.
    13. Edwin J. Elton, 2002. "Spiders: Where Are the Bugs?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(3), pages 453-472, July.
    14. Andersen, Torben G & Bollerslev, Tim, 1998. "Answering the Skeptics: Yes, Standard Volatility Models Do Provide Accurate Forecasts," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 885-905, November.
    15. Carol L. Osler, 2003. "Currency Orders and Exchange Rate Dynamics: An Explanation for the Predictive Success of Technical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1791-1819, October.
    16. Oberlechner, Thomas, 2001. "Importance of Technical and Fundamental Analysis in the European Foreign Exchange Market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 81-93, January.
    17. Sweeney, Richard J., 1988. "Some New Filter Rule Tests: Methods and Results," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 285-300, September.
    18. Olson, Dennis, 2004. "Have trading rule profits in the currency markets declined over time?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 85-105, January.
    19. Eugenie Hol & Siem Jan Koopman, 2002. "Stock Index Volatility Forecasting with High Frequency Data," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-068/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Neely, C. J. & Weller, P. A., 2003. "Intraday technical trading in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 223-237, April.
    21. Carol L. Osler, 2000. "Support for resistance: technical analysis and intraday exchange rates," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jul, pages 53-68.
    22. 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.
    23. Lee, Darren D. & Chan, Howard & Faff, Robert W. & Kalev, Petko S., 2003. "Short-term contrarian investing--is it profitable? ... Yes and No," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 385-404, December.
    24. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. "Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1228, September.
    25. Blair, Bevan J. & Poon, Ser-Huang & Taylor, Stephen J., 2001. "Forecasting S&P 100 volatility: the incremental information content of implied volatilities and high-frequency index returns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 5-26, November.
    26. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    27. 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.
    28. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:5:p:1791-1820 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Ki-Yeol Kwon & Richard Kish, 2002. "Technical trading strategies and return predictability: NYSE," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(9), pages 639-653.
    30. Halbert White, 2000. "A Reality Check for Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1097-1126, September.
    31. Allen, Franklin & Karjalainen, Risto, 1999. "Using genetic algorithms to find technical trading rules," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 245-271, February.
    32. Charles J. Corrado & Suk-Hun Lee, 1992. "Filter Rule Tests Of The Economic Significance Of Serial Dependencies In Daily Stock Returns," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 15(4), pages 369-387, December.
    33. Brock, William & Lakonishok, Josef & LeBaron, Blake, 1992. "Simple Technical Trading Rules and the Stochastic Properties of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1731-1764, December.
    34. Fong, Wai Mun & Yong, Lawrence H. M., 2005. "Chasing trends: recursive moving average trading rules and internet stocks," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 43-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Shynkevich, Andrei, 2012. "Performance of technical analysis in growth and small cap segments of the US equity market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 193-208.
    3. 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.
    4. Shynkevich, Andrei, 2013. "Time-series momentum as an intra- and inter-industry effect: Implications for market efficiency," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 64-85.
    5. Strobel, Marcus & Auer, Benjamin R., 2018. "Does the predictive power of variable moving average rules vanish over time and can we explain such tendencies?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 168-184.
    6. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Hsu, Yu-Chin & Kuan, Chung-Ming, 2010. "Testing the predictive ability of technical analysis using a new stepwise test without data snooping bias," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 471-484, June.
    7. Ülkü, Numan & Prodan, Eugeniu, 2013. "Drivers of technical trend-following rules' profitability in world stock markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 214-229.
    8. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Taylor, Mark P. & Wang, Zigan, 2016. "Technical trading: Is it still beating the foreign exchange market?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 188-208.
    9. Bajgrowicz, Pierre & Scaillet, Olivier, 2012. "Technical trading revisited: False discoveries, persistence tests, and transaction costs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 473-491.
    10. Marshall, Ben R. & Cahan, Rochester H. & Cahan, Jared M., 2008. "Can commodity futures be profitably traded with quantitative market timing strategies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1810-1819, September.
    11. Ioana-Andreea Boboc & Mihai-Cristian Dinică, 2013. "An Algorithm for Testing the Efficient Market Hypothesis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-11, October.
    12. Taylor, Mark & Hsu, Po-Hsuan, 2014. "Forty Years, Thirty Currencies and 21,000 Trading Rules: A Large-scale, Data-Snooping Robust Analysis of Technical Trading in t," CEPR Discussion Papers 10018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Marshall, Ben R. & Young, Martin R. & Rose, Lawrence C., 2006. "Candlestick technical trading strategies: Can they create value for investors?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2303-2323, August.
    14. Stephan Schulmeister, 2009. "Profitability of technical stock trading: Has it moved from daily to intraday data?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 190-201, October.
    15. Eero P䴤ri & Mika Vilska, 2014. "Performance of moving average trading strategies over varying stock market conditions: the Finnish evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(24), pages 2851-2872, August.
    16. Robert Pereira, 1999. "Forecasting Ability but No Profitability: an Empirical Evaluation of Genetic Algorithm-Optimized Technical Trading Rules," Working Papers 1999.06, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    17. Yung-Ho Chang, 2019. "Cross-market information spillover and the performance of technical trading in the foreign exchange market," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(2), pages 211-227, April.
    18. Hung, Chiayu & Lai, Hung-Neng, 2022. "Information asymmetry and the profitability of technical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Friesen, Geoffrey C. & Weller, Paul A. & Dunham, Lee M., 2009. "Price trends and patterns in technical analysis: A theoretical and empirical examination," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1089-1100, June.
    20. Hassanniakalager, Arman & Sermpinis, Georgios & Stasinakis, Charalampos, 2021. "Trading the foreign exchange market with technical analysis and Bayesian Statistics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 230-251.

    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:empfin:v:15:y:2008:i:2:p:199-210. 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/jempfin .

    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.