IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20120018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

High-Frequency Technical Trading: The Importance of Speed

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Scholtus

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

  • Dick van Dijk

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

This paper investigates the importance of speed for technical trading rule performance for three highly liquid ETFs listed on NASDAQ over the period January 6, 2009 up to September 30, 2009. In addition we examine the characteristics of market activity over the day and within subperiods corresponding to hours, minutes, and seconds. Speed has a clear impact on the return of technical trading rules. For strategies that yield a positive return when they experience no delay, a delay of 200 milliseconds is enough to lower performance significantly. On low volatility days this is already the case for delays larger than 50 milliseconds. In addition, the importance of speed for trading rule performance increases over time. Market activity follows a U-shape over the day with a spike at 10:00AM due to macroeconomic announcements and is characterized by periodic activity within the day, hour, minute, and second.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Scholtus & Dick van Dijk, 2012. "High-Frequency Technical Trading: The Importance of Speed," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-018/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20120018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/12018.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neely, Christopher & Weller, Paul & Dittmar, Rob, 1997. "Is Technical Analysis in the Foreign Exchange Market Profitable? A Genetic Programming Approach," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 405-426, December.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Schulmeister, Stephan, 2009. "Profitability of technical stock trading: Has it moved from daily to intraday data?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 190-201, October.
    6. Hasbrouck, Joel & Saar, Gideon, 2009. "Technology and liquidity provision: The blurring of traditional definitions," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 143-172, May.
    7. Bruce N. Lehmann and David M. Modest., 1994. "Trading and Liquidity on the Tokyo Stock Exchange: A Bird's Eye View," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-234, University of California at Berkeley.
    8. 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.
    9. Garvey, Ryan & Wu, Fei, 2009. "Intraday time and order execution quality dimensions," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 203-228, May.
    10. Johannes Prix & Otto Loistl & Michael Huetl, 2007. "Algorithmic Trading Patterns in Xetra Orders," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(8), pages 717-739.
    11. Cialenco, Igor & Protopapadakis, Aris, 2011. "Do technical trading profits remain in the foreign exchange market? Evidence from 14 currencies," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 176-206, April.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. McInish, Thomas H & Wood, Robert A, 1992. "An Analysis of Intraday Patterns in Bid/Ask Spreads for NYSE Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 753-764, June.
    15. Szakmary, Andrew C. & Shen, Qian & Sharma, Subhash C., 2010. "Trend-following trading strategies in commodity futures: A re-examination," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 409-426, February.
    16. Bong-Chan, Kho, 1996. "Time-varying risk premia, volatility, and technical trading rule profits: Evidence from foreign currency futures markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 249-290, June.
    17. Po-Hsuan Hsu & Chung-Ming Kuan, 2005. "Reexamining the Profitability of Technical Analysis with Data Snooping Checks," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 606-628.
    18. 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.
    19. Terrence Hendershott & Charles M. Jones & Albert J. Menkveld, 2011. "Does Algorithmic Trading Improve Liquidity?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 1-33, February.
    20. Lehmann, Bruce N & Modest, David M, 1994. "Trading and Liquidity on the Tokyo Stock Exchange: A Bird's Eye View," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 951-984, July.
    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. Adamantios Ntakaris & Juho Kanniainen & Moncef Gabbouj & Alexandros Iosifidis, 2019. "Mid-price Prediction Based on Machine Learning Methods with Technical and Quantitative Indicators," Papers 1907.09452, arXiv.org.
    2. Adamantios Ntakaris & Juho Kanniainen & Moncef Gabbouj & Alexandros Iosifidis, 2020. "Mid-price prediction based on machine learning methods with technical and quantitative indicators," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-39, June.
    3. Giancarlo Salirrosas Mart'inez, 2016. "Biased Roulette Wheel: A Quantitative Trading Strategy Approach," Papers 1609.09601, arXiv.org.
    4. Scholtus, Martin & van Dijk, Dick & Frijns, Bart, 2014. "Speed, algorithmic trading, and market quality around macroeconomic news announcements," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 89-105.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Andrei Shynkevich, 2021. "Impact of bitcoin futures on the informational efficiency of bitcoin spot market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 115-134, January.
    4. Shynkevich, Andrei, 2012. "Short-term predictability of equity returns along two style dimensions," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 675-685.
    5. Hung, Chiayu & Lai, Hung-Neng, 2022. "Information asymmetry and the profitability of technical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    6. Farias Nazário, Rodolfo Toríbio & e Silva, Jéssica Lima & Sobreiro, Vinicius Amorim & Kimura, Herbert, 2017. "A literature review of technical analysis on stock markets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 115-126.
    7. 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.
    8. Dockery, Everton & Todorov, Ivan, 2023. "Further evidence on the returns to technical trading rules: Insights from fourteen currencies," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. Fong, Tom Pak Wing & Wu, Shui Tang, 2020. "Predictability in sovereign bond returns using technical trading rules: Do developed and emerging markets differ?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    10. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    11. Batten, Jonathan A. & Lucey, Brian M. & McGroarty, Frank & Peat, Maurice & Urquhart, Andrew, 2018. "Does intraday technical trading have predictive power in precious metal markets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 102-113.
    12. Robert Hudson & Andrew Urquhart, 2021. "Technical trading and cryptocurrencies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 297(1), pages 191-220, February.
    13. Benjamin R. Auer, 2021. "Have trend-following signals in commodity futures markets become less reliable in recent years?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 35(4), pages 533-553, December.
    14. Yamamoto, Ryuichi, 2012. "Intraday technical analysis of individual stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3033-3047.
    15. 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.
    16. Frömmel, Michael & Lampaert, Kevin, 2016. "Does frequency matter for intraday technical trading?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 177-183.
    17. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Taylor, Mark P. & Wang, Zigan & Li, Yan, 2024. "The out-of-sample performance of carry trades," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    18. 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.
    19. Nomikos, Nikos K. & Doctor, Kaizad, 2013. "Economic significance of market timing rules in the Forward Freight Agreement markets," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 77-93.
    20. Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Souropanis, Ioannis, 2019. "The role of technical indicators in exchange rate forecasting," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 197-221.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Technical Trading; High-Frequency Trading; Latency Costs; Trading Speed; Market Activity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tin:wpaper:20120018. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    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.