IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wvu/wpaper/09-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Combining Mean Reversion and Momentum Trading Strategies in Foreign Exchange Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Alina Serban

    (Department of Economics, West Virginia University)

Abstract

The literature on equity markets documents the existence of mean reversion and momentum phenomena. Researchers in foreign exchange markets find that foreign exchange rates also display behaviors akin to momentum and mean reversion. This paper implements a trading strategy combining mean reversion and momentum in foreign exchange markets. The strategy was originally designed for equity markets, but it also generates abnormal returns when applied to uncovered interest parity deviations for ten countries. I find that the pattern for the positions thus created in the foreign exchange markets is qualitatively similar to that found in the equity markets. Quantitatively, this strategy performs better in foreign exchange markets than in equity markets. Also, it outperforms traditional foreign exchange trading strategies, such as carry trades and moving average rules.

Suggested Citation

  • Alina Serban, 2009. "Combining Mean Reversion and Momentum Trading Strategies in Foreign Exchange Markets," Working Papers 09-14, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    • Handle: RePEc:wvu:wpaper:09-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://be.wvu.edu/phd_economics/pdf/09-14.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no

    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. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    3. Charles Engel & Kenneth D. West, 2005. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 485-517, June.
    4. Christopher J. Neely, 1998. "Technical analysis and the profitability of U.S. foreign exchange intervention," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 3-17.
    5. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    6. LeBaron, Blake, 1999. "Technical trading rule profitability and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 125-143, October.
    7. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1988. "Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 246-273, April.
    8. Taylor, Mark P, 1987. "Covered Interest Parity: A High-Frequency, High-Quality Data Study," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 54(216), pages 429-438, November.
    9. Okunev, John & White, Derek, 2003. "Do Momentum-Based Strategies Still Work in Foreign Currency Markets?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 425-447, June.
    10. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    11. Balvers, Ronald J. & Wu, Yangru, 2006. "Momentum and mean reversion across national equity markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 24-48, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Engel, Charles & Hamilton, James D, 1990. "Long Swings in the Dollar: Are They in the Data and Do Markets Know It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 689-713, September.
    14. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    15. Chiang, Thomas C. & Jiang, Christine X., 1995. "Foreign exchange returns over short and long horizons," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 267-282.
    16. Ronald Balvers & Yangru Wu & Erik Gilliland, 2000. "Mean Reversion across National Stock Markets and Parametric Contrarian Investment Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 745-772, April.
    17. Charles M.C. Lee & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2000. "Price Momentum and Trading Volume," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2017-2069, October.
    18. Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Does the Stock Market Rationally Reflect Fundamental Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 591-601, July.
    19. Chaboud, Alain P. & Wright, Jonathan H., 2005. "Uncovered interest parity: it works, but not for long," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 349-362, July.
    20. Bilson, John F O, 1981. "The "Speculative Efficiency" Hypothesis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 435-451, July.
    21. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    22. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    23. 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.
    24. Sapp, Stephen, 2004. "Are all Central Bank interventions created equal? An empirical investigation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 443-474, March.
    25. 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.
    26. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    27. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    28. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    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. 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. Akarim, Yasemin Deniz & Sevim, Serafettin, 2013. "The impact of mean reversion model on portfolio investment strategies: Empirical evidence from emerging markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 453-459.

    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. Serban, Alina F., 2010. "Combining mean reversion and momentum trading strategies in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2720-2727, November.
    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. 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.
    4. Schmidt, Robert & Wollmershäuser, Timo, 2004. "Sterilized Foreign Exchange Market Interventions in a Chartist-Fundamentalist Exchange Rate Model," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 50, University of Würzburg, Chair for Monetary Policy and International Economics.
    5. Balvers, Ronald J. & Wu, Yangru, 2006. "Momentum and mean reversion across national equity markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 24-48, January.
    6. Dueker, Michael & Neely, Christopher J., 2007. "Can Markov switching models predict excess foreign exchange returns?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 279-296, February.
    7. Engel, Charles, 2014. "Exchange Rates and Interest Parity," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.),Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 453-522, Elsevier.
    8. Yangru Wu, 2004. "Momentum Trading, Mean Reveral and Overration in Chinese Stock Market," Working Papers 232004, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    9. Maxime Charlebois & Stephen Sapp, 2007. "Temporal Patterns in Foreign Exchange Returns and Options," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2‐3), pages 443-470, March.
    10. Du, Ding, 2008. "The 52-week high and momentum investing in international stock indexes," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 61-77, February.
    11. Anella Munro, 2014. "Exchange rates, expected returns and risk," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2014/01, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    12. Kobana Abukari & Isaac Otchere, 2020. "Dominance of hybrid contratum strategies over momentum and contrarian strategies: half a century of evidence," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(4), pages 471-505, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, January.
    15. Kearney, Fearghal & Cummins, Mark & Murphy, Finbarr, 2019. "Using extracted forward rate term structure information to forecast foreign exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-14.
    16. Martin H. Schmidt, 2017. "Trading strategies based on past returns: evidence from Germany," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 31(2), pages 201-256, May.
    17. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sarno, Lucio & Schmeling, Maik & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2012. "Currency momentum strategies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 660-684.
    18. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95, July.
    19. Karim M. Abadir & Gabriel Talmain, 2008. "Macro and Financial Markets: The Memory of an Elephant?," Working Paper series 17_08, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    20. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Mishra, Sagarika & Narayan, Seema & Thuraisamy, Kannan, 2015. "Is Exchange Rate Trading Profitable?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 217-229.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Uncovered Interest Parity; Mean Reversion; Momentum; Foreign Exchange; Trading Strategies.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wvu:wpaper:09-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Josh Hall). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dewvuus.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.