IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v523y2019icp691-701.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Momentum and contrarian effects on the cryptocurrency market

Author

Listed:
  • Kosc, Krzysztof
  • Sakowski, Paweł
  • Ślepaczuk, Robert

Abstract

We report the results of investigation of the momentum and contrarian effects on cryptocurrency markets. The investigated investment strategies involve 100 (amongst over 1200 present as of date Nov 2017) cryptocurrencies with the largest market cap and average 14-day daily volume exceeding a given threshold value. Investment portfolios are constructed using different assumptions regarding the portfolio reallocation period, width of the ranking window, the number of cryptocurrencies in the portfolio, and the percent transaction costs. The performance is benchmarked against: (1) equally weighted and (2) market-cap weighted investments in all of the ranked assets, as well as against the buy and hold strategies based on (3) S&P500 index, and (4) Bitcoin price. Our results show a clear and significant dominance of the short-term contrarian effect over both momentum effect and the benchmark portfolios. The information ratio coefficient for the contrarian strategies often exceeds two-digit values depending on the assumed reallocation period and the width of the ranking window. Additionally, we observe a significant diversification potential for all cryptocurrency portfolios with relation to the S&P500 index.

Suggested Citation

  • Kosc, Krzysztof & Sakowski, Paweł & Ślepaczuk, Robert, 2019. "Momentum and contrarian effects on the cryptocurrency market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 691-701.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:523:y:2019:i:c:p:691-701
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2019.02.057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037843711930216X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2019.02.057?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Does Bitcoin hedge global uncertainty? Evidence from wavelet-based quantile-in-quantile regressions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 87-95.
    2. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Mark Grinblatt, 1999. "Do Industries Explain Momentum?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1249-1290, August.
    3. Neil Gandal & Hanna Halaburda, 2014. "Competition in the Cryptocurrency Market," Working Papers 14-17, NET Institute.
    4. Bariviera, Aurelio F., 2017. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin revisited: A dynamic approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 1-4.
    5. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    6. Bruce N. Lehmann, 1990. "Fads, Martingales, and Market Efficiency," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 1-28.
    7. Blau, Benjamin M., 2018. "Price dynamics and speculative trading in Bitcoin," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 15-21.
    8. Bouri, Elie & Molnár, Peter & Azzi, Georges & Roubaud, David & Hagfors, Lars Ivar, 2017. "On the hedge and safe haven properties of Bitcoin: Is it really more than a diversifier?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 192-198.
    9. Chan, Louis K C & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Lakonishok, Josef, 1996. "Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1681-1713, December.
    10. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    11. Bariviera, Aurelio F. & Basgall, María José & Hasperué, Waldo & Naiouf, Marcelo, 2017. "Some stylized facts of the Bitcoin market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 484(C), pages 82-90.
    12. Balcilar, Mehmet & Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Can volume predict Bitcoin returns and volatility? A quantiles-based approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 74-81.
    13. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    14. Cheah, Eng-Tuck & Fry, John, 2015. "Speculative bubbles in Bitcoin markets? An empirical investigation into the fundamental value of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-36.
    15. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard H, 1987. "Further Evidence on Investor Overreaction and Stock Market Seasonalit y," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 557-581, July.
    16. Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2017. "Volatility estimation for Bitcoin: A comparison of GARCH models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 3-6.
    17. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Bitcoin, gold and the dollar – A GARCH volatility analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 85-92.
    18. C. Baek & M. Elbeck, 2015. "Bitcoins as an investment or speculative vehicle? A first look," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 30-34, January.
    19. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Hedging capabilities of bitcoin. Is it the virtual gold?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 139-144.
    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. Ślepaczuk Robert & Zenkova Maryna, 2018. "Robustness of Support Vector Machines in Algorithmic Trading on Cryptocurrency Market," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 5(52), pages 186-205, January.
    2. Zaremba, Adam & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Long, Huaigang & Mercik, Aleksander & Szczygielski, Jan J., 2021. "Up or down? Short-term reversal, momentum, and liquidity effects in cryptocurrency markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Petkova, Ralitsa, 2023. "Extrapolative beliefs about Bitcoin returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    4. Christian Fieberg & Gerrit Liedtke & Daniel Metko & Adam Zaremba, 2023. "Cryptocurrency factor momentum," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(12), pages 1853-1869, November.
    5. Paweł Sakowski & Anna Turovtseva, 2020. "Verification of Investment Opportunities on the Cryptocurrency Market within the Markowitz Framework," Working Papers 2020-41, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    6. Day, Min-Yuh & Ni, Yensen, 2023. "Do clean energy indices outperform using contrarian strategies based on contrarian trading rules?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    7. Zhang, Zhehao & Xing, Ruina & Liu, Jiajun & Shao, Yifei, 2023. "Correlation-based investment strategies: A comparison between Chinese and US stock markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Bui, Quynh & Ślepaczuk, Robert, 2022. "Applying Hurst Exponent in pair trading strategies on Nasdaq 100 index," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 592(C).
    9. Ladislav Kristoufek, 2022. "On the role of stablecoins in cryptoasset pricing dynamics," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-26, December.
    10. Kumar, Ashish & Iqbal, Najaf & Mitra, Subrata Kumar & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Connectedness among major cryptocurrencies in standard times and during the COVID-19 outbreak," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Min-Yuh Day & Yensen Ni & Chinning Hsu & Paoyu Huang, 2022. "Do Investment Strategies Matter for Trading Global Clean Energy and Global Energy ETFs?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-15, May.
    12. Mehdi Zolfaghari & Bahram Sahabi, 2021. "The impact of oil price and exchange rate on momentum strategy profits in stock market: evidence from oil-rich developing countries," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(7), pages 1981-2023, October.
    13. Borgards, Oliver, 2021. "Dynamic time series momentum of cryptocurrencies," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    14. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Alex Plastun, 2020. "Momentum effects in the cryptocurrency market after one-day abnormal returns," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(3), pages 251-266, September.

    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. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    2. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    3. Corbet, Shaen & Meegan, Andrew & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Exploring the dynamic relationships between cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 28-34.
    4. Andrea Flori, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies In Finance: Review And Applications," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-22, August.
    5. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    6. ORĂȘTEAN Ramona & MĂRGINEAN Silvia Cristina & SAVA Raluca, 2019. "Bitcoin In The Scientific Literature – A Bibliometric Study," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 14(3), pages 160-174, December.
    7. Troster, Victor & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Macedo, Demian Nicolás, 2019. "Bitcoin returns and risk: A general GARCH and GAS analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 187-193.
    8. Parthajit Kayal & G. Balasubramanian, 2021. "Excess Volatility in Bitcoin: Extreme Value Volatility Estimation," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 10(2), pages 222-231, July.
    9. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    10. Wei Zhang & Pengfei Wang & Xiao Li & Dehua Shen, 2018. "Some stylized facts of the cryptocurrency market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(55), pages 5950-5965, November.
    11. Zhou, Siwen, 2018. "Exploring the Driving Forces of the Bitcoin Exchange Rate Dynamics: An EGARCH Approach," MPRA Paper 89445, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Achraf Ghorbel & Wajdi Frikha & Yasmine Snene Manzli, 2022. "Testing for asymmetric non-linear short- and long-run relationships between crypto-currencies and stock markets," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(3), pages 387-425, September.
    13. Chu, Jeffrey & Chan, Stephen & Zhang, Yuanyuan, 2021. "Bitcoin versus high-performance technology stocks in diversifying against global stock market indices," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 580(C).
    14. Li, Mu-Yao & Cai, Qing & Gu, Gao-Feng & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2019. "Exponentially decayed double power-law distribution of Bitcoin trade sizes," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 535(C).
    15. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema & Eki Rahman, R. & Setiawan, Iwan, 2019. "Bitcoin price growth and Indonesia's monetary system," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 364-376.
    16. Omane-Adjepong, Maurice & Alagidede, Imhotep Paul, 2019. "Multiresolution analysis and spillovers of major cryptocurrency markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 191-206.
    17. Corbet, Shaen & Katsiampa, Paraskevi & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2020. "Measuring quantile dependence and testing directional predictability between Bitcoin, altcoins and traditional financial assets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    18. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Lahiani, Amine & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2018. "Testing for asymmetric nonlinear short- and long-run relationships between bitcoin, aggregate commodity and gold prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 224-235.
    19. Vidal-Tomás, David & Ibañez, Ana, 2018. "Semi-strong efficiency of Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 259-265.
    20. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata K., 2019. "Hedging bitcoin with other financial assets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 30-36.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin; Momentum and contrarian effect; Investment strategies; Efficient market hypothesis; Modern asset allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:phsmap:v:523:y:2019:i:c:p:691-701. 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.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    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.