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Abstract
The purpose of this report is to review the evidence on the profitability of technical
analysis. To achieve this purpose, the report comprehensively reviews survey, theoretical and
empirical studies regarding technical trading strategies. We begin by overviewing survey studies
that have directly investigated market participants’ experience and views on technical analysis.
The survey literature indicates that technical analysis has been widely used by market
participants in futures markets and foreign exchange markets, and that about 30% to 40% of
practitioners appear to believe that technical analysis is an important factor in determining price
movement at shorter time horizons up to 6 months. Then we provide an overview of theoretical
models that include implications about the profitability of technical analysis. Conventional
efficient market theories, such as the martingale model and random walk models, rule out the
possibility of technical trading profits in speculative markets, while relatively recent models such
as noisy rational expectation models or behavioral models suggest that technical trading
strategies may be profitable due to noise in the market or investors’ irrational behavior. Finally,
empirical studies are surveyed. In this report, the empirical literature is categorized into two
groups, “early” and “modern” studies, according to the characteristics of testing procedures.
Early studies indicated that technical trading strategies were profitable in foreign
exchange markets and futures markets, but not in stock markets before the 1980s. Modern
studies indicated that technical trading strategies consistently generated economic profits in a
variety of speculative markets at least until the early 1990s. Among a total of 92 modern studies,
58 studies found positive results regarding technical trading strategies, while 24 studies obtained
negative results. Ten studies indicated mixed results. Despite the positive evidence on the
profitability of technical trading strategies, it appears that most empirical studies are subject to
various problems in their testing procedures, e.g., data snooping, ex post selection of trading
rules or search technologies, and difficulties in estimation of risk and transaction costs. Future
research must address these deficiencies in testing in order to provide conclusive evidence on the
profitability of technical trading strategies.