IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0068344.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Random Trading Strategies More Successful than Technical Ones?

Author

Listed:
  • Alessio Emanuele Biondo
  • Alessandro Pluchino
  • Andrea Rapisarda
  • Dirk Helbing

Abstract

In this paper we explore the specific role of randomness in financial markets, inspired by the beneficial role of noise in many physical systems and in previous applications to complex socio-economic systems. After a short introduction, we study the performance of some of the most used trading strategies in predicting the dynamics of financial markets for different international stock exchange indexes, with the goal of comparing them to the performance of a completely random strategy. In this respect, historical data for FTSE-UK, FTSE-MIB, DAX, and S & P500 indexes are taken into account for a period of about 15–20 years (since their creation until today).

Suggested Citation

  • Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alessandro Pluchino & Andrea Rapisarda & Dirk Helbing, 2013. "Are Random Trading Strategies More Successful than Technical Ones?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-13, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0068344
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068344
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068344
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068344&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0068344?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giacomo Livan & Jun-ichi Inoue & Enrico Scalas, 2012. "On the non-stationarity of financial time series: impact on optimal portfolio selection," Papers 1205.0877, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2012.
    2. Tedeschi, Gabriele & Iori, Giulia & Gallegati, Mauro, 2012. "Herding effects in order driven markets: The rise and fall of gurus," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 82-96.
    3. John C. Cox & Jonathan E. Ingersoll Jr. & Stephen A. Ross, 2005. "A Theory Of The Term Structure Of Interest Rates," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 5, pages 129-164, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong, 2002. "Heterogeneous Beliefs, Risk and Learning in a Simple Asset Pricing Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 19(1), pages 95-132, February.
    5. Robert C. Merton, 2005. "Theory of rational option pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 8, pages 229-288, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 1997. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1059-1096, September.
    7. Pluchino, Alessandro & Rapisarda, Andrea & Garofalo, Cesare, 2011. "Efficient promotion strategies in hierarchical organizations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(20), pages 3496-3511.
    8. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 2001. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Chapters, in: W. D. Dechert (ed.), Growth Theory, Nonlinear Dynamics and Economic Modelling, chapter 16, pages 402-438, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alessandro Pluchino & Andrea Rapisarda, 2012. "The beneficial role of random strategies in social and financial systems," Papers 1209.5881, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2013.
    10. Pluchino, Alessandro & Rapisarda, Andrea & Garofalo, Cesare, 2010. "The Peter principle revisited: A computational study," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(3), pages 467-472.
    11. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    12. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    13. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-254, April.
    14. Jensen, Michael C., 1978. "Some anomalous evidence regarding market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2-3), pages 95-101.
    15. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    16. Carbone, A. & Castelli, G. & Stanley, H.E., 2004. "Time-dependent Hurst exponent in financial time series," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 344(1), pages 267-271.
    17. Wang, Jiang, 1994. "A Model of Competitive Stock Trading Volume," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 127-168, February.
    18. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Lux, Thomas, 1995. "Herd Behaviour, Bubbles and Crashes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 881-896, July.
    20. Carl Chiarella, 1992. "The Dynamics of Speculative Behaviour," Working Paper Series 13, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    21. Hull, John C & White, Alan D, 1987. "The Pricing of Options on Assets with Stochastic Volatilities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(2), pages 281-300, June.
    22. Zeeman, E. C., 1974. "On the unstable behaviour of stock exchanges," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 39-49, March.
    23. Pluchino, Alessandro & Garofalo, Cesare & Rapisarda, Andrea & Spagano, Salvatore & Caserta, Maurizio, 2011. "Accidental politicians: How randomly selected legislators can improve parliament efficiency," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(21), pages 3944-3954.
    24. J. B. Satinover & D. Sornette, 2009. "Illusory versus genuine control in agent-based games," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 67(3), pages 357-367, February.
    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. Piekunko-Mantiuk Iwona, 2019. "Parameterized Trade on the Futures Market on the WIG20," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 19(1), pages 114-125, June.
    2. Yuri S. Popkov & Alexey Yu. Popkov & Yuri A. Dubnov & Dimitri Solomatine, 2020. "Entropy-Randomized Forecasting of Stochastic Dynamic Regression Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-20, July.
    3. Alessio Emanuele Biondo, 2018. "Order book microstructure and policies for financial stability," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(1), pages 196-218, March.
    4. Yan Li & Bo Zheng & Ting-Ting Chen & Xiong-Fei Jiang, 2017. "Fluctuation-driven price dynamics and investment strategies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Biondo, A.E. & Pluchino, A. & Rapisarda, A., 2018. "Modeling surveys effects in political competitions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 503(C), pages 714-726.
    6. Alessandro Pluchino & Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Andrea Rapisarda, 2018. "Talent Versus Luck: The Role Of Randomness In Success And Failure," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03n04), pages 1-31, May.
    7. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2017. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-104, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. N'yoma Diamond & Grant Perkins, 2022. "Using Intermarket Data to Evaluate the Efficient Market Hypothesis with Machine Learning," Papers 2212.08734, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    9. Tanimoto, Jun & Sagara, Hirokji, 2015. "How the indirect reciprocity with co-evolving norm and strategy for 2 × 2 prisoner’s dilemma game works for emerging cooperation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 438(C), pages 595-602.
    10. Condorelli, Stefano, 2018. "Price momentum and the 1719-20 bubbles: A method to compare and interpret booms and crashes in asset markets," MPRA Paper 89888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Huishu Zhang & Jianrong Wei & Jiping Huang, 2014. "Scaling and Predictability in Stock Markets: A Comparative Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-5, March.
    12. Alessandro Pluchino & Giulio Burgio & Andrea Rapisarda & Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alfredo Pulvirenti & Alfredo Ferro & Toni Giorgino, 2019. "Exploring the role of interdisciplinarity in physics: Success, talent and luck," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-15, June.
    13. F. M. Stefan & A. P. F. Atman, 2017. "Asymmetric return rates and wealth distribution influenced by the introduction of technical analysis into a behavioral agent based model," Papers 1711.08282, arXiv.org.
    14. Aleksejus Kononovicius & Vygintas Gontis, 2014. "Herding interactions as an opportunity to prevent extreme events in financial markets," Papers 1409.8024, arXiv.org, revised May 2015.
    15. David Garcia & Frank Schweitzer, 2015. "Social signals and algorithmic trading of Bitcoin," Papers 1506.01513, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2015.
    16. Chengwei Liu, 2021. "In luck we trust: Capturing the diversity bonus through random selection," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 10(2), pages 85-91, June.
    17. Stefan, F.M. & Atman, A.P.F., 2023. "Asymmetric rate of returns and wealth distribution influenced by the introduction of technical analysis into a behavioral agent-based model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 630(C).
    18. Caserta, Maurizio & Pluchino, Alessandro & Rapisarda, Andrea & Spagano, Salvatore, 2021. "Why lot? How sortition could help representative democracy," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 565(C).
    19. Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alfio Giarlotta & Alessandro Pluchino & Andrea Rapisarda, 2016. "Perfect Information vs Random Investigation: Safety Guidelines for a Consumer in the Jungle of Product Differentiation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-26, January.

    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. A. E. Biondo & A. Pluchino & A. Rapisarda & D. Helbing, 2013. "Are random trading strategies more successful than technical ones?," Papers 1303.4351, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2013.
    2. Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alessandro Pluchino & Andrea Rapisarda, 2014. "Micro and Macro Benefits of Random Investments in Financial Markets," Papers 1405.5805, arXiv.org.
    3. Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), 2008. "Handbook on Information Technology in Finance," International Handbooks on Information Systems, Springer, number 978-3-540-49487-4, November.
    4. Gaunersdorfer, A. & Hommes, C.H. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2000. "Bifurcation Routes to Volatility Clustering," CeNDEF Working Papers 00-04, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    5. Hommes, C.H., 2005. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance, In: Handbook of Computational Economics II: Agent-Based Computational Economics, edited by Leigh Tesfatsion and Ken Judd , Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006," CeNDEF Working Papers 05-03, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    6. Christian Peretti, 2007. "Long Memory and Hysteresis," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 363-389, Springer.
    7. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Youwei, 2015. "Testing of a market fraction model and power-law behaviour in the DAX 30," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-17.
    8. Hommes, Cars H., 2006. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1109-1186, Elsevier.
    9. C. H. Hommes, 2001. "Financial markets as nonlinear adaptive evolutionary systems," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 149-167.
    10. Lux, Thomas & Alfarano, Simone, 2016. "Financial power laws: Empirical evidence, models, and mechanisms," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 3-18.
    11. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Youwei & Zheng, Min, 2019. "Heterogeneous agent models in financial markets: A nonlinear dynamics approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 135-149.
    12. Gaunersdorfer, Andrea & Hommes, Cars H. & Wagener, Florian O.O., 2008. "Bifurcation routes to volatility clustering under evolutionary learning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 27-47, July.
    13. Kai Li, 2014. "Asset Price Dynamics with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Time Delays," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2014.
    14. Carl Chiarella & Roberto Dieci & Xue-Zhong He, 2008. "Heterogeneity, Market Mechanisms, and Asset Price Dynamics," Research Paper Series 231, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.
    15. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2017. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-104, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Kai Li, 2014. "Asset Price Dynamics with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Time Delays," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 13, July-Dece.
    17. Subbotin, Alexandre, 2009. "Volatility Models: from Conditional Heteroscedasticity to Cascades at Multiple Horizons," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 15(3), pages 94-138.
    18. Lux, Thomas, 2008. "Stochastic behavioral asset pricing models and the stylized facts," Kiel Working Papers 1426, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Youwei Li & Xue-Zhong He, 2005. "Long Memory, Heterogeneity, and Trend Chasing," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 113, Society for Computational Economics.
    20. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Kai & Santi, Caterina & Shi, Lei, 2022. "Social interaction, volatility clustering, and momentum," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 125-149.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0068344. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.