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Technical trading rules, loss avoidance, and the business cycle

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  • Ergun, Lerby
  • Molchanov, Alexander
  • Stork, Philip

Abstract

We show that simple technical trading rule (TTR) strategies substantially reduce investment left tail risk. An investor following a TTR strategy can also avoid a high percentage of extremely negative returns. This percentage increases substantially during recessions. Interestingly, tail risk reduction does not come at a cost of lower performance – risk adjusted returns of TTR strategies are in fact higher than those of a buy-and-hold strategy. Our findings are robust to changes in trading strategy specifications. They hold in 38 international equity markets, as well as in a large sample of individual US stocks, and survive a reality check bootstrap.

Suggested Citation

  • Ergun, Lerby & Molchanov, Alexander & Stork, Philip, 2023. "Technical trading rules, loss avoidance, and the business cycle," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0927538x23002433
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2023.102172
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tail risk; Technical trading rules; Loss avoidance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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