(An Analytical Study of Selected Technical Indicators in Chosen Asian Countries 2017–2022)
A Thesis Presented To
The Council Of Administration and Economics College
in Karbala’a University , As a Part Of Requirements To Obtain Phd In The Financial and Banking Sciences
Presented By Student
Mohammed Abdullah Abbas Almayah
And the supervision By
Prof. Dr. Ali Ahmed Faris Al-Kaabi
Asst. Prof. Dr. Mohammed Faez Hassan Al-Zubaie
Technical analysis represents one of the primary tools relied upon by investors to understand the behavior of financial markets and to make investment decisions, due to its ability to interpret price movements based on historical market data. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused unprecedented economic disruptions, the need arose to reassess the efficiency of technical analysis indicators under the extraordinary conditions that prevailed in the markets during that period.
This study aims to evaluate the performance of a set of technical analysis indicators, namely: the Simple Moving Average (SMA), the Relative Strength Index (RSI), the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), the Bollinger Bands, and the Money Flow Index (MFI). The evaluation was conducted through the calculation of daily returns, cumulative returns, and the Sharpe ratio for each indicator across two time periods: before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering the period from 2017 to the end of 2022. Furthermore, the study seeks to compare the market responsiveness to these indicators across four selected Asian financial markets — South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand — based on each market’s general index as a representative of overall market performance, in order to identify similarities and differences in the efficiency of these indicators among the sample markets.
The significance of this research lies in its contribution to clarifying the reliability of technical analysis indicators during crisis periods, thereby providing a knowledge framework for investors, financial institutions, and researchers. Buy and sell signals were generated using the Python programming language, given its precision and speed in processing financial data, while daily and cumulative returns were calculated using Microsoft Excel, which enabled accurate quantitative comparison among the performance of different indicators.
The results revealed a clear variation in the performance of indicators between the two periods. The accuracy of some indicators declined during the pandemic due to heightened volatility and uncertainty, whereas others demonstrated resilience and adaptability to exceptional market conditions. Additionally, the effectiveness of these indicators varied across markets, reflecting the unique characteristics of each market in terms of liquidity, momentum, trading volume, and investor response to global events.
Keywords: Technical Analysis, Market Indicators, COVID-19 Pandemic, Simple Moving Average (SMA), Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Bollinger Bands, Money Flow Index (MFI), Asian Markets.
