Return Predictability and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Bulgarian Stock Market

We applied three well-known technical indicators and one neglected indicator to the daily data for the Bulgarian Stock Index from November 21, 2003 to March 1, 2018. The results strongly support the predictive power of technical trading rules for the entire period and for each subperiod. This study includes a comprehensive evaluation that shows that it is possible to exploit this predictive power to beat the buy-and-hold strategy with respect to both risk and transaction costs. We identify four strategies, from lowest risk to highest risk, and find that trading by the 200 days moving average beat the profitability of the buy-and-hold strategy with respect to risk and one-way transaction cost by 1.76% for the entire period and each subperiod for Bulgaria.