IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v71y2023icp1-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can we forecast better in periods of low uncertainty? The role of technical indicators

Author

Listed:
  • Ferrer Fernández, María
  • Henry, Ólan
  • Pybis, Sam
  • Stamatogiannis, Michalis P.

Abstract

We examine the importance of periods of high versus low financial uncertainty when forecasting stock market returns with technical predictors. Our results suggest that technical predictors perform better in periods of low financial uncertainty and should be avoided due to poor forecasting performance in periods of heightened uncertainty. In-sample, we report disentangled R2 statistics, and out-of-sample we show these results continue when forecasting the equity risk premium. We show similar results when forecasting the volatility of returns with technical predictors. We measure periods of heightened and low financial uncertainty in a regime switching framework. Overall, our results provide insight into the mechanism that suggests that, when uncertainty rises, investors’ opinions polarize leading to a breakdown of predictability based on technical indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrer Fernández, María & Henry, Ólan & Pybis, Sam & Stamatogiannis, Michalis P., 2023. "Can we forecast better in periods of low uncertainty? The role of technical indicators," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-12.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:71:y:2023:i:c:p:1-12
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2022.12.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539822001207
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2022.12.014?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    2. Sydney C. Ludvigson & Sai Ma & Serena Ng, 2021. "Uncertainty and Business Cycles: Exogenous Impulse or Endogenous Response?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 369-410, October.
    3. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 1999. "A Unified Theory of Underreaction, Momentum Trading, and Overreaction in Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2143-2184, December.
    4. Hong, Harrison & Torous, Walter & Valkanov, Rossen, 2007. "Do industries lead stock markets?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 367-396, February.
    5. Andrew Ang & Allan Timmermann, 2012. "Regime Changes and Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 313-337, October.
    6. Jun Tu, 2010. "Is Regime Switching in Stock Returns Important in Portfolio Decisions?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(7), pages 1198-1215, July.
    7. Lunde A. & Timmermann A., 2004. "Duration Dependence in Stock Prices: An Analysis of Bull and Bear Markets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 253-273, July.
    8. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Paul Labys, 2003. "Modeling and Forecasting Realized Volatility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(2), pages 579-625, March.
    9. John Y. Campbell & Samuel B. Thompson, 2008. "Predicting Excess Stock Returns Out of Sample: Can Anything Beat the Historical Average?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1509-1531, July.
    10. Dashan Huang & Fuwei Jiang & Jun Tu & Guofu Zhou, 2015. "Investor Sentiment Aligned: A Powerful Predictor of Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 791-837.
    11. Ser-Huang Poon & Clive W.J. Granger, 2003. "Forecasting Volatility in Financial Markets: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 478-539, June.
    12. Christopher J. Neely & David E. Rapach & Jun Tu & Guofu Zhou, 2014. "Forecasting the Equity Risk Premium: The Role of Technical Indicators," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1772-1791, July.
    13. Rapach, David E. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C. & Zhou, Guofu, 2016. "Short interest and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 46-65.
    14. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    15. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    16. J. Bradford DeLong & Konstantin Magin, 2009. "The U.S. Equity Return Premium: Past, Present, and Future," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-208, Winter.
    17. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    18. Husted, Lucas & Rogers, John & Sun, Bo, 2020. "Monetary policy uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 20-36.
    19. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    20. Florackis, Chris & Giorgioni, Gianluigi & Kostakis, Alexandros & Milas, Costas, 2014. "On stock market illiquidity and real-time GDP growth," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 210-229.
    21. Andrew Patton & Dimitris Politis & Halbert White, 2009. "Correction to “Automatic Block-Length Selection for the Dependent Bootstrap” by D. Politis and H. White," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 372-375.
    22. Giovanni Cespa & Xavier Vives, 2012. "Dynamic Trading and Asset Prices: Keynes vs. Hayek," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 539-580.
    23. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    24. Dangl, Thomas & Halling, Michael, 2012. "Predictive regressions with time-varying coefficients," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 157-181.
    25. Blair, Bevan J. & Poon, Ser-Huang & Taylor, Stephen J., 2001. "Forecasting S&P 100 volatility: the incremental information content of implied volatilities and high-frequency index returns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 5-26, November.
    26. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    27. Henkel, Sam James & Martin, J. Spencer & Nardari, Federico, 2011. "Time-varying short-horizon predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 560-580, March.
    28. David E. Rapach & Jack K. Strauss & Guofu Zhou, 2010. "Out-of-Sample Equity Premium Prediction: Combination Forecasts and Links to the Real Economy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 821-862, February.
    29. Julien Cujean & Michael Hasler, 2017. "Why Does Return Predictability Concentrate in Bad Times?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(6), pages 2717-2758, December.
    30. Treynor, Jack L & Ferguson, Robert, 1985. "In Defense of Technical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 757-773, July.
    31. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Tang, Yi, 2017. "Is economic uncertainty priced in the cross-section of stock returns?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 471-489.
    32. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    33. Conrad, Jennifer & Kaul, Gautam, 1993. "Long-Term Market Overreaction or Biases in Computed Returns?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 39-63, March.
    34. John H. Cochrane, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1533-1575, July.
    35. Chan, K C, 1988. "On the Contrarian Investment Strategy," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(2), pages 147-163, April.
    36. Adrian R. Pagan & Kirill A. Sossounov, 2003. "A simple framework for analysing bull and bear markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 23-46.
    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. Barua, Ronil & Sharma, Anil K., 2023. "Using fear, greed and machine learning for optimizing global portfolios: A Black-Litterman approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PC).

    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. Yu, Deshui & Huang, Difang, 2023. "Cross-sectional uncertainty and expected stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 321-340.
    2. Jiang, Fuwei & Liu, Hongkui & Yu, Jiasheng & Zhang, Huajing, 2023. "International stock return predictability: The role of U.S. uncertainty spillover," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Wang, Yudong & Pan, Zhiyuan & Liu, Li & Wu, Chongfeng, 2019. "Oil price increases and the predictability of equity premium," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 43-58.
    4. Nonejad, Nima, 2022. "Predicting equity premium out-of-sample by conditioning on newspaper-based uncertainty measures: A comparative study," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Stein, Tobias, 2024. "Forecasting the equity premium with frequency-decomposed technical indicators," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 6-28.
    6. Haase, Felix & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2023. "Predictability of bull and bear markets: A new look at forecasting stock market regimes (and returns) in the US," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 587-605.
    7. Liya Chu & Xue-Zhong He & Kai Li & Jun Tu, 2022. "Investor Sentiment and Paradigm Shifts in Equity Return Forecasting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4301-4325, June.
    8. Nonejad, Nima, 2021. "Predicting equity premium using news-based economic policy uncertainty: Not all uncertainty changes are equally important," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    9. Wang, Yudong & Pan, Zhiyuan & Wu, Chongfeng & Wu, Wenfeng, 2020. "Industry equi-correlation: A powerful predictor of stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-24.
    10. Gonçalo Faria & Fabio Verona, 2016. "Forecasting the equity risk premium with frequency-decomposed predictors," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 06, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    11. Gonçalo Faria & Fabio Verona, 2016. "Forecasting the equity risk premium with frequency-decomposed predictors," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 06, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    12. Wang, Yudong & Hao, Xianfeng & Wu, Chongfeng, 2021. "Forecasting stock returns: A time-dependent weighted least squares approach," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    15. Nonejad, Nima, 2023. "Conditional out-of-sample predictability of aggregate equity returns and aggregate equity return volatility using economic variables," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 91-122.
    16. Christopher J. Neely & David E. Rapach & Jun Tu & Guofu Zhou, 2014. "Forecasting the Equity Risk Premium: The Role of Technical Indicators," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1772-1791, July.
    17. João F. Caldeira & Rangan Gupta & Hudson S. Torrent, 2020. "Forecasting U.S. Aggregate Stock Market Excess Return: Do Functional Data Analysis Add Economic Value?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-16, November.
    18. Kuntz, Laura-Chloé, 2020. "Beta dispersion and market timing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 235-256.
    19. Daniel Borup & Jonas N. Eriksen & Mads M. Kjær & Martin Thyrsgaard, 2024. "Predicting Bond Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(2), pages 931-951, February.
    20. Faria, Gonçalo & Verona, Fabio, 2018. "Forecasting stock market returns by summing the frequency-decomposed parts," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 228-242.
    21. Faria, Gonçalo & Verona, Fabio, 2018. "The equity risk premium and the low frequency of the term spread," Research Discussion Papers 7/2018, Bank of Finland.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forecasting; Stock return predictability; Economic uncertainty; Switching regression;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in 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:empfin:v:71:y:2023:i:c:p:1-12. 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.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    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.