IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/psl/bnlaqr/199525.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Persistent profitability of technical analysis on foreign exchange markets?

Author

Listed:
  • L. MENKHOFF

    (University of Freiburg)

  • M. SCHLUMBERGER

    (University of Freiburg)

Abstract

The effect of technical analyses on the performance of subsequent policies and actions in the foreign exchange markets is analysed using three cases. Results show that use of technical analyses is persistently profitable. Participants, however, tend to view short-term market risk as important and thus decide to forego some of the rules derived from technical analysis. This observation does not negate the theory on efficient learning.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Menkhoff & M. Schlumberger, 1995. "Persistent profitability of technical analysis on foreign exchange markets?," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 48(193), pages 189-215.
  • Handle: RePEc:psl:bnlaqr:1995:25
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ojs.uniroma1.it/index.php/PSLQuarterlyReview/article/view/10506/10392
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sweeney, Richard J, 1986. "Beating the Foreign Exchange Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 163-182, March.
    2. Logue, Dennis E & Sweeney, Richard James, 1977. "'White-Noise' in Imperfect Markets: The Case of the Franc/Dollar Exchange Rate," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(3), pages 761-768, June.
    3. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    4. Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1990. "The Noise Trader Approach to Finance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 19-33, Spring.
    5. Stephan Schulmeister, 1988. "Currency speculation and dollar fluctuations," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 41(167), pages 343-365.
    6. Goodhart, Charles A. E. & Hesse, Thomas, 1993. "Central Bank Forex internvention assessed in continous time," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 368-389, August.
    7. Ronald Macdonald & Mark P. Taylor, 1992. "Exchange Rate Economics: A Survey," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 39(1), pages 1-57, March.
    8. Logue, Dennis E. & Sweeney, Richard James & Willett, Thomas D., 1978. "Speculative behavior of foreign exchange rates during the current float," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 159-174, May.
    9. Riccardo Curcio & Charles Goodhart, 1992. "When Support/Resistance Levels are Broken, Can Profits be Made? Evidence from the Foreign Exchange Market," FMG Discussion Papers dp142, Financial Markets Group.
    10. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Andrew K. Rose, 1994. "A Survey of Empirical Research on Nominal Exchange Rates," NBER Working Papers 4865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1990. "Chartists, Fundamentalists, and Trading in the Foreign Exchange Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 181-185, May.
    12. Levich, Richard M, 1989. "Is the Foreign Exchange Market Efficient?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 5(3), pages 40-60, Autumn.
    13. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharftstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1992. "Herd on the Street: Informational Inefficiencies in a Market with Short-Term Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1461-1484, September.
    14. Levich, Richard M. & Thomas, Lee III, 1993. "The significance of technical trading-rule profits in the foreign exchange market: a bootstrap approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 451-474, October.
    15. repec:bla:ecorec:v:0:y:1992:i:0:p:105-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Michael P. Leahy, 1989. "The profitability of U.S. intervention," International Finance Discussion Papers 343, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Marco Tronzano, 1992. "Efficiency in German and Japanese foreign exchange markets: Evidence from cointegration techniques," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 128(1), pages 1-20, March.
    18. Dominguez, Kathryn M & Frankel, Jeffrey A, 1993. "Does Foreign-Exchange Intervention Matter? The Portfolio Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1356-1369, December.
    19. Allen, Helen & Taylor, Mark P, 1990. "Charts, Noise and Fundamentals in the London Foreign Exchange Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(400), pages 49-59, Supplemen.
    20. Goodman, Stephen H, 1979. "Foreign Exchange Rate Forecasting Techniques: Implications for Business and Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(2), pages 415-427, May.
    21. Cornell, W Bradford & Dietrich, J Kimball, 1978. "The Efficiency of the Market for Foreign Exchange under Floating Exchange Rates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 111-120, February.
    22. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    23. Boothe, Paul & Longworth, David, 1986. "Foreign exchange market efficiency tests: Implications of recent empirical findings," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 135-152, June.
    24. Stephen J. Taylor, 1992. "Rewards Available to Currency Futures Speculators: Compensation for Risk or Evidence of Inefficient Pricing?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 68(S1), pages 105-116, December.
    25. De Grauwe, Paul & Decupere, Danny, 1992. "Psychological Barriers in the Foreign Exchange Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 621, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Norbert Fiess & Ronald MacDonald, 1999. "Technical Analysis in the Foreign Exchange Market: A Cointegration-Based Approach," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 3(3), pages 147-172, September.
    2. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    3. Schulmeister, Stephan, 2006. "The interaction between technical currency trading and exchange rate fluctuations," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 212-233, September.
    4. Vitale, Paolo, 2000. "Speculative noise trading and manipulation in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 689-712, October.
    5. Stephan Schulmeister, 2000. "Technical Analysis and Exchange Rate Dynamics," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 25857, April.
    6. Schulmeister, Stephan, 2009. "Profitability of technical stock trading: Has it moved from daily to intraday data?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 190-201, October.
    7. Carol L. Osler, 2000. "Support for resistance: technical analysis and intraday exchange rates," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jul, pages 53-68.
    8. Frenkel Michael & Stadtmann Georg, 2004. "Trading Rule Profitability and Central Bank Interventions in the Dollar-Deutsch mark Market / Der Zusammenhang zwischen der Profitabilität einer technischen Handelsstrategie und Zentralbankinterventio," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 224(6), pages 653-672, December.
    9. Cheol‐Ho Park & Scott H. Irwin, 2007. "What Do We Know About The Profitability Of Technical Analysis?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 786-826, September.
    10. Tweneboah Senzu, Emmanuel, 2020. "Modern currency exchange rate behaviour and proposed trend-like forecasting model," MPRA Paper 99933, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Stephan Schulmeister, 2007. "The Interaction Between the Aggregate Behaviour of Technical Trading Systems and Stock Price Dynamics," WIFO Working Papers 290, WIFO.
    12. Stephan Schulmeister, 2009. "Technical Trading and Trends in the Dollar-Euro Exchange Rate," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 37582, April.
    13. Stephan Schulmeister, 2007. "Performance of Technical Trading Systems in the Yen/Dollar Market," WIFO Working Papers 291, WIFO.

    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. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    2. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Stephan Schulmeister, 2000. "Technical Analysis and Exchange Rate Dynamics," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 25857, April.
    4. Bertrand Maillet & Thierry Michel, 2000. "Further insights on the puzzle of technical analysis profitability," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 196-224.
    5. Alessandro Beber, 1999. "Il dibattito su dignità ed efficacia dell'analisi tecnica nell'economia finanziaria," Alea Tech Reports 003, Department of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Italy, revised 14 Jun 2008.
    6. Taylor, Mark & Hsu, Po-Hsuan, 2014. "Forty Years, Thirty Currencies and 21,000 Trading Rules: A Large-scale, Data-Snooping Robust Analysis of Technical Trading in t," CEPR Discussion Papers 10018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Juan Jose Echavarria & Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas, 2016. "Great expectations? evidence from Colombia’s exchange rate survey," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 25(1), pages 1-27, December.
    8. Cheol‐Ho Park & Scott H. Irwin, 2007. "What Do We Know About The Profitability Of Technical Analysis?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 786-826, September.
    9. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Taylor, Mark P. & Wang, Zigan, 2016. "Technical trading: Is it still beating the foreign exchange market?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 188-208.
    10. Stuart Landon & Constance E. Smith, 2003. "The Risk Premium, Exchange Rate Expectations, and the Forward Exchange Rate: Estimates for the Yen–Dollar Rate," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 144-158, February.
    11. F. FernAndez-RodrIguez & S. Sosvilla-Rivero & J. Andrada-FElix, 2003. "Technical analysis in foreign exchange markets: evidence from the EMS," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 113-122.
    12. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    13. LeBaron, Blake, 1999. "Technical trading rule profitability and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 125-143, October.
    14. Gehrig, Thomas & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2004. "The use of flow analysis in foreign exchange: exploratory evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 573-594, June.
    15. Ivanova, Yuliya & Neely, Christopher J. & Weller, Paul & Famiglietti, Matthew T., 2021. "Can risk explain the profitability of technical trading in currency markets?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    16. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:5:p:1791-1820 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Lee, Chun I & Gleason, Kimberly C. & Mathur, Ike, 2001. "Trading rule profits in Latin American currency spot rates," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 135-156.
    18. Stephan Schulmeister, 2009. "Technical Trading and Trends in the Dollar-Euro Exchange Rate," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 37582, April.
    19. Bekiros, Stelios D., 2015. "Heuristic learning in intraday trading under uncertainty," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 34-49.
    20. Diks, Cees & van der Weide, Roy, 2005. "Herding, a-synchronous updating and heterogeneity in memory in a CBS," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 741-763, April.
    21. Vitale, Paolo, 2000. "Speculative noise trading and manipulation in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 689-712, October.

    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:psl:bnlaqr:1995:25. 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: Carlo D'Ippoliti (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.economiacivile.it .

    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.