Are technical trading rules profitable? Evidence for head-and-shoulder rules

C-Tier
Journal: Applied Economics
Year: 2003
Volume: 35
Issue: 1
Pages: 33-40

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

The profitability of chartist trading rules on foreign exchange markets is still under debate. Since simple technical trading rules may not adequately capture the complex phenomenon of chartist trading, this study focuses on the prominent head-and-shoulder pattern as a representative trading rule which incorporates various 'technical' ideas such as smoothed trends, trend reversal, resistance levels, and volatility clustering. For various combinations of the building blocks of head-and-shoulder definitions the result is generally negative: Returns to head-and-shoulder trading rules are not significantly positive - and if there is any evidence for non-zero returns at all, then it is evidence for negative returns.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:taf:applec:v:35:y:2003:i:1:p:33-40
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-25