Profitability of simple technical trading rules of Chinese stock exchange indexes

Hong Zhu, Zhi-Qiang Jiang, Sai-Ping Li and Wei-Xing Zhou

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2015, vol. 439, issue C, 75-84

Abstract: Although technical trading rules have been widely used by practitioners in financial markets, their profitability still remains controversial. We here investigate the profitability of moving average (MA) and trading range break (TRB) rules by using the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SHCI) from May 21, 1992 through December 31, 2013 and Shenzhen Stock Exchange Component Index (SZCI) from April 3, 1991 through December 31, 2013. The t-test is adopted to check whether the mean returns which are conditioned on the trading signals are significantly different from unconditioned returns and whether the mean returns conditioned on the buy signals are significantly different from the mean returns conditioned on the sell signals. We find that TRB rules outperform MA rules and short-term variable moving average (VMA) rules outperform long-term VMA rules. By applying White’s Reality Check test and accounting for the data snooping effects, we find that the best trading rule outperforms the buy-and-hold strategy when transaction costs are not taken into consideration. Once transaction costs are included, trading profits will be eliminated completely. Our analysis suggests that simple trading rules like MA and TRB cannot beat the standard buy-and-hold strategy for the Chinese stock exchange indexes.

Keywords: Econophysics; Technical trading rules; Profitability; White’s Reality Check; Bootstrap; Transaction costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:439:y:2015:i:c:p:75-84

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2015.07.032

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