A New Anomaly: The Cross-Sectional Profitability of Technical Analysis
A New Anomaly The Cross-Sectional Profitability of Technical Analysis.pdf
ABSTRACT:
In this paper, we document that an application of the moving averages (a popular form of technical analysis) to portfolios sorted by volatility generates investment timing portfolios that outperform the buy-and-hold strategy greatly, with returns that have negative or little risk exposures on the market factor and the Fama-French SML and HML factors. As a result, the abnormal returns, relative to the CAPM and the Fama-French three-factor models, are high, and higher than those from the momentum strategy for high decile portfolios. The abnormal returns remain high even after accounting for transaction costs. While the moving average is a trend following strategy as the momentum, its performance has little correlation with the momentum, and behaves differently over business cycles, default and liquidity risks.
Han, Yufeng, Yang, Ke and Zhou, Guofu, A New Anomaly: The Cross-Sectional Profitability of Technical Analysis (August 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1656460
