Technical analysis strategies continue to generate excess profits in the FX markets, especially in emerging markets, according to new research from Warwick Business School and the University of Hong Kong.
The researchers claim to have conducted the most extensive test of technical analysis in the FX markets to date, looking at 30 currencies (v. $) over 45 years of data from 1971 to 2015. They applied a range of technical trading strategies to these markets using oscillators, filters, moving average, and breakouts. They concluded that, “Technical Analysis indeed has predictive power for both developed and emerging currencies, in terms of being able to generate significant mean excess returns and impressive Sharpe ratios, but that emerging market currencies are in general more predictable with technical analysis than are developed country currencies. ”