Can Structural Change Explain The Decrease In Returns To Technical Analysis

Practioners Abstract: Returns to managed futures funds and Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) have decreased dramatically during the last several years. Since these funds overwhelmingly use technical analysis, this research examines futures prices to determine if there is evidence of a structural change in futures price movements that could explain the reduction in fund returns. Bootstrap tests are used to test significance of a change in statistics related to daily returns, close-to-open changes, breakaway gaps, and serial correlation. Results indicate that several statistics have changed across a broad range of commodities indicating futures price fluctuations have changed. The lower price volatility, decreased price reaction time, and decreased serial correlation may partly explain the lower returns from technical analysis.