Technical Analysis Around the World

31 Pages Posted: 30 Jul 2008 Last revised: 1 Dec 2011

See all articles by Ben R. Marshall

Ben R. Marshall

Massey University - School of Economics and Finance

Rochester H. Cahan

Macquarie Capital (USA)

Jared Cahan

Macquarie Bank Ltd

Date Written: August 1, 2010

Abstract

Over 5,000 popular technical trading rules are not consistently profitable in the 49 country indices that comprise the Morgan Stanley Capital Index once data snooping bias is accounted for. Each market has some rules that are profitable when considered in isolation but these profits are not statistically significant after data snooping bias adjustment. There is some evidence that technical trading rules perform better in emerging markets than developed markets, which is consistent with the finding of previous studies that these markets are less efficient, but this result is not strong. While we cannot rule out the possibility that these trading rules compliment other market timing techniques or that trading rules we do not test are profitable, we do show that over 5,000 trading rules do not add value beyond what may be expected by chance when used in isolation during the time period we consider.

Keywords: Technical Analysis, Quantitative, Market Timing

JEL Classification: G12, G14

Suggested Citation

Marshall, Ben R. and Cahan, Rochester H. and Cahan, Jared, Technical Analysis Around the World (August 1, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1181367 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1181367

Ben R. Marshall (Contact Author)

Massey University - School of Economics and Finance ( email )

Private Bag 11-222
Palmerston North, 30974
New Zealand
64 6 350 5799 (Phone)
64 6 350 5651 (Fax)

Rochester H. Cahan

Macquarie Capital (USA) ( email )

125 W. 55th Street
Level 23
New York, NY 10019
United States

Jared Cahan

Macquarie Bank Ltd ( email )

Sydney 2000, NSW
Australia

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