The profitability of moving average trading rules in South Asian stock markets

Two studies published in the last decade (Brock et al., 1992; Hudson et al., 1996) uncover evidence that technical trading rules have predictive ability with respect to market indices in the USA and the UK. This study analyses the performance of one group of these trading rules using index data for four emerging South Asian capital markets (the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Colombo Stock Exchange, the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Karachi Stock Exchange) and examines the implications of the results for the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis. The findings indicate that technical trading rules have predictive ability in these markets and reject the null hypothesis that the returns to be earned from studying moving average values are equal to those achieved from a naive buy and hold strategy; the employment of these techniques generates excess returns to investors in South Asian markets.