IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v17y2024i10p443-d1490211.html

Bitcoin Return Prediction: Is It Possible via Stock-to-Flow, Metcalfe’s Law, Technical Analysis, or Market Sentiment?

Author

Listed:
  • Austin Shelton

    (Department of Finance, Sykes College of Business, The University of Tampa, Tampa, FL 33606-1490, USA)

Abstract

Popular methods to value Bitcoin include the stock-to-flow model, Metcalfe’s Law, technical analysis, and sentiment-related measures. Within this paper, I test whether such models and variables are predictive of Bitcoin’s returns. I find that the stock-to-flow model predictions and Metcalfe’s Law help to explain Bitcoin’s returns in-sample but have limited to no ability to predict Bitcoin’s returns out-of-sample. In contrast, Bitcoin market sentiment and technical analysis measures are generally unrelated to Bitcoin’s returns in-sample and are poor predictors of Bitcoin’s returns out-of-sample. Despite the poor performance of Bitcoin return predictors within out-of-sample regressions, I demonstrate that a very successful out-of-sample Bitcoin tactical allocation or “market timing” strategy is formed via blending out-of-sample univariate model predictions. This OOS-blended model trading strategy, which algorithmically allocates between Bitcoin and cash (USD), significantly outperforms buying-and-holding or “HODL”ing Bitcoin, boosting CAPM alpha by almost 1300 basis points while also increasing portfolio Sharpe Ratio and Sortino Ratio and dramatically reducing portfolio maximum drawdown relative to buying-and-holding Bitcoin.

Suggested Citation

  • Austin Shelton, 2024. "Bitcoin Return Prediction: Is It Possible via Stock-to-Flow, Metcalfe’s Law, Technical Analysis, or Market Sentiment?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-24, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:17:y:2024:i:10:p:443-:d:1490211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/17/10/443/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/17/10/443/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2007. "Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 129-152, Spring.
    2. 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.
    3. Andrew W. Lo & Harry Mamaysky & Jiang Wang, 2000. "Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1705-1765, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Maung, Kenwin & Swanson, Norman R., 2025. "A survey of models and methods used for forecasting when investing in financial markets," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1355-1382.
    3. Andrew Detzel & Hong Liu & Jack Strauss & Guofu Zhou & Yingzi Zhu, 2021. "Learning and predictability via technical analysis: Evidence from bitcoin and stocks with hard‐to‐value fundamentals," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 107-137, March.
    4. Guofu Zhou, 2018. "Measuring Investor Sentiment," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 239-259, November.
    5. Mingwei Sun & Paskalis Glabadanidis, 2022. "Can technical indicators predict the Chinese equity risk premium?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 114-142, March.
    6. Papapostolou, Nikos C. & Pouliasis, Panos K. & Nomikos, Nikos K. & Kyriakou, Ioannis, 2016. "Shipping investor sentiment and international stock return predictability," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 81-94.
    7. Chia-Lin Chang & Jukka Ilomäki & Hannu Laurila & Michael McAleer, 2018. "Long Run Returns Predictability and Volatility with Moving Averages," Risks, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-18, September.
    8. Fernando M. Duarte & Carlo Rosa, 2015. "The equity risk premium: a review of models," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue 2, pages 39-57.
    9. Liang, Chao & Xu, Yongan & Wang, Jianqiong & Yang, Mo, 2022. "Whether dimensionality reduction techniques can improve the ability of sentiment proxies to predict stock market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Zhang, Yaojie & Tian, Linxing & Zhang, Zhikai, 2025. "Petroleum volatility spillover index and stock return predictability," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    11. Hubert Dichtl, 2020. "Investing in the S&P 500 index: Can anything beat the buy‐and‐hold strategy?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 352-378, April.
    12. Chen Gu & Xu Guo & Ruwan Adikaram & Kam C. Chan & Jing Lu, 2023. "Treasury return predictability and investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 905-924, December.
    13. Leland E. Farmer & Lawrence Schmidt & Allan Timmermann, 2023. "Pockets of Predictability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1279-1341, June.
    14. Chung, San-Lin & Hung, Chi-Hsiou & Yeh, Chung-Ying, 2012. "When does investor sentiment predict stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 217-240.
    15. He, Mengxi & Wen, Danyan & Xing, Lu & Zhang, Yaojie, 2024. "Industry volatility concentration and the predictability of aggregate stock market volatility," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    16. Yongan Xu & Jianqiong Wang & Zhonglu Chen & Chao Liang, 2023. "Sentiment indices and stock returns: Evidence from China," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 1063-1080, January.
    17. Daniel Cunha Oliveira & Yutong Lu & Xi Lin & Mihai Cucuringu & Andre Fujita, 2024. "Causality-Inspired Models for Financial Time Series Forecasting," Papers 2408.09960, arXiv.org.
    18. Yu, Deshui & Tang, Jiachen & Zhou, Mingtao, 2026. "Trade policy uncertainty and stock returns: A tale of two periods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    19. Luiz Félix & Roman Kräussl & Philip Stork, 2020. "Implied volatility sentiment: a tale of two tails," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 823-849, May.
    20. Xie Haibin & Zhou Mo & Hu Yi & Yu Mei, 2014. "Forecasting the Crude Oil Price with Extreme Values," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 2(3), pages 193-205, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jjrfmx:v:17:y:2024:i:10:p:443-:d:1490211. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.