Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation

Contents:

Author Info

  • Andrew W. Lo

    (MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management)

  • Harry Mamaysky

    (MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management)

  • Jiang Wang

    (MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management)

Abstract

Technical analysis, also known as 'charting,' has been a part of financial practice for many decades, but this discipline has not received the same level of academic scrutiny and acceptance as more traditional approaches such as fundamental analysis. One of the main obstacles is the highly subjective nature of technical analysis-the presence of geometric shapes in historical price charts is often in the eyes of the beholder. In this paper, we propose a systematic and automatic approach to technical pattern recognition using nonparametric kernel regression, and we apply this method to a large number of U.S. stocks from 1962 to 1996 to evaluate the effectiveness of technical analysis. By comparing the unconditional empirical distribution of daily stock returns to the conditional distribution-conditioned on specific technical indicators such as head-and-shoulders or double bottoms-we find that over the 31-year sample period, several technical indicators do provide incremental information and may have some practical value. Copyright The American Finance Association 2000.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/servlet/useragent?func=synergy&synergyAction=showTOC&journalCode=jofi&volume=55&issue=4&year=2000&part=null
File Function: link to full text
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Finance Association in its journal The Journal of Finance.

Volume (Year): 55 (2000)
Issue (Month): 4 (08)
Pages: 1705-1770

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:55:y:2000:i:4:p:1705-1770

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.afajof.org/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Web: http://www.afajof.org/membership/join.asp

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. P.H. Kevin Chang & Carol Osler, 1994. "Evaluating chart-based technical analysis: the head-and-shoulder pattern in foreign exchange," Research Paper 9414, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  2. Christopher Neely & Paul Weller, 1998. "Technical trading rules in the European Monetary System," Working Papers 1997-015, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
  3. Andrew W. Lo & A. Craig MacKinlay, 1989. "Stock Market Prices Do Not Follow Random Walks: Evidence From a Simple Specification Test," NBER Working Papers 2168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Lo, Andrew W. (Andrew Wen-Chuan) & MacKinlay, Archie Craig, 1955-, 1992. "Maximizing predictability in the stock and bond markets," Working papers 3450-92., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
  5. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller & Robert Dittmar, 1997. "Is technical analysis in the foreign exchange market profitable? a genetic programming approach," Working Papers 1996-006, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
  6. Blume, Lawrence & Easley, David & O'Hara, Maureen, 1994. " Market Statistics and Technical Analysis: The Role of Volume," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 153-81, March.
  7. C.L. Osler & P.H. Kevin Chang, 1995. "Head and shoulders: not just a flaky pattern," Staff Reports 4, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  8. K. Rouwenhorst, 1996. "International Momentum Strategies," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm36, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Feb 2008.
  9. Neftci, Salih N, 1991. "Naive Trading Rules in Financial Markets and Wiener-Kolmogorov Prediction Theory: A Study of "Technical Analysis."," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 549-71, October.
  10. Treynor, Jack L & Ferguson, Robert, 1985. " In Defense of Technical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 757-73, July.
  11. H„rdle,Wolfgang, 1992. "Applied Nonparametric Regression," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521429504.
  12. 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.
  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 1731-64, December.
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 in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:55:y:2000:i:4:p:1705-1770

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.