IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Combining Mean Reversion and Momentum Trading Strategies in Foreign Exchange Markets

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Alina Serban

    (Department of Economics, West Virginia University)

Registered author(s):

    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.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

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

    Paper provided by Department of Economics, West Virginia University in its series Working Papers with number 09-14.

    as
    in new window

    Length: 30 pages
    Date of creation: 2009
    Handle: RePEc:wvu:wpaper:09-14
    Contact details of provider: Postal:
    P.O. Box 6025, Morgantown, WV 26506-6025

    Phone: (304) 293-7859
    Fax: (304) 293-2233
    Web page: http://business.wvu.edu/graduate-degrees/phd-economics
    Email:


    More information through EDIRC

    Keywords: Uncovered Interest Parity; Mean Reversion; Momentum; Foreign Exchange; Trading Strategies.;

    Find related papers by 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

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

    as
    in new window


    1. 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.
    2. Sweeney, Richard J, 1986. " Beating the Foreign Exchange Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(1), pages 163-182, March.
    3. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Bilson, John F O, 1981. "The "Speculative Efficiency" Hypothesis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 435-451, July.
    9. LeBaron, Blake, 1999. "Technical trading rule profitability and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 125-143, October.
    10. 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.
    11. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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(02), pages 425-447, June.
    15. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. " Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. Narasimhan Jegadeesh, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, 04.
    22. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    23. 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.
    24. 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.
    25. 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.
    26. 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, 04.
    27. 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.
    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 are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

    as
    in new window


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    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.

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Access and download statistics

    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)

    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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 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.

    This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.