IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5505.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technical Trading Rule Profitability and Foreign Exchange Intervention

Author

Listed:
  • Blake LeBaron

Abstract

There is reliable evidence that simple rules used by traders have some predictive value over the future movement of foreign exchange prices. This paper will review some of this evidence and discuss the economic magnitude of this predictability. The profitability of these trading rules will then be analyzed in connection with central bank activity using intervention data from the Federal Reserve. The objective is to find out to what extent foreign exchange predictability can be confined to periods of central bank activity in the foreign exchange market. The results indicate that after removing periods in which the Federal Reserve is active, exchange rate predictability is dramatically reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Blake LeBaron, 1996. "Technical Trading Rule Profitability and Foreign Exchange Intervention," NBER Working Papers 5505, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5505
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5505.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klein, Michael W., 1993. "The accuracy of reports of foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(6), pages 644-653, December.
    2. Frankel, Jeff & Froot, Ken, 1986. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt1972q8wm, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    3. Blake LeBaron, "undated". "Technical Trading Rules and Regime Shifts in Foreign Exchange," Working papers _007, University of Wisconsin - Madison.
    4. Hart, Oliver D & Kreps, David M, 1986. "Price Destabilizing Speculation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 927-952, October.
    5. Nelson, Daniel B. & Foster, Dean P., 1995. "Filtering and forecasting with misspecified ARCH models II : Making the right forecast with the wrong model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 303-335, June.
    6. Neely, Christopher J. & Weller, Paul A., 2001. "Technical analysis and central bank intervention," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 949-970, December.
    7. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    8. Szakmary, Andrew C. & Mathur, Ike, 1997. "Central bank intervention and trading rule profits in foreign exchange markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 513-535, August.
    9. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Characterizing Predictable Components in Excess Returns on Equity and Foreign Exchange Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 467-509, June.
    10. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    11. 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.
    12. repec:bla:ecorec:v:0:y:1992:i:0:p:105-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Kathryn Dominguez & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1990. "Does Foreign Exchange Intervention Work?," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 16, April.
    14. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    15. 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.
    16. Szpiro, George G., 1994. "Exchange rate speculation and chaos inducing intervention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 363-368, August.
    17. Taylor, Dean, 1982. "Official Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market, or, Bet against the Central Bank," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 356-368, April.
    18. Kathryn M. Dominguez, 1993. "Does Central Bank Intervention Increase the Volatility of Foreign Exchange Rates?," NBER Working Papers 4532, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. 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 1731-1764, December.
    20. 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.
    21. Sweeney, Richard J, 1986. "Beating the Foreign Exchange Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 163-182, March.
    22. Geert J. Almekinders, 1995. "Foreign Exchange Intervention," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 71.
    23. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-153, March.
    24. Bilson, John F. O. & Hsieh, David A., 1987. "The profitability of currency speculation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 115-130.
    25. 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.).
    26. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1985. "Using Survey Data to Test Some Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Fernando Fernández-Rodríguez & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero & Julián Andrada-Félix, "undated". "Technical Analysis in Foreign Exchange Markets: Linear Versus Nonlinear Trading Rules," Working Papers on International Economics and Finance 00-02, FEDEA.
    4. Gencay, Ramazan, 1999. "Linear, non-linear and essential foreign exchange rate prediction with simple technical trading rules," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 91-107, February.
    5. LeBaron, Blake & Arthur, W. Brian & Palmer, Richard, 1999. "Time series properties of an artificial stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1487-1516, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Saacke, Peter, 2002. "Technical analysis and the effectiveness of central bank intervention," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 459-479, August.
    8. Balvers, Ronald & Wu, Yangru, 2010. "Optimal transaction filters under transitory trading opportunities: Theory and empirical illustration," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 129-156, February.
    9. Bong-Chan, Kho, 1996. "Time-varying risk premia, volatility, and technical trading rule profits: Evidence from foreign currency futures markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 249-290, June.
    10. 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.
    11. Marey, Philip S., 2004. "Exchange rate expectations: controlled experiments with artificial traders," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 283-304, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Dockery, Everton & Todorov, Ivan, 2023. "Further evidence on the returns to technical trading rules: Insights from fourteen currencies," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    18. 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.
    19. Tai, Chu-Sheng, 1999. "Time-varying risk premia in foreign exchange and equity markets: evidence from Asia-Pacific countries," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(3-4), pages 291-316, November.
    20. Elliott, Graham & Ito, Takatoshi, 1999. "Heterogeneous expectations and tests of efficiency in the yen/dollar forward exchange rate market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 435-456, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance

    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:nbr:nberwo:5505. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.