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This paper studies the behavior and statistical properties of three simple trading strategies. Technical trading strategies can be viewed as a form of information gathering. But are they worth the computational cost? I compare the profitability and trading accuracy for three strategies with different information gathering techniques and parametric dimensions. The trading rules were a filter strategy, moving average strategy, and an arithmetic and harmonic mean difference strategy. Using an out of sample evaluation for both predictability and profitability as criteria, I find that added complexity does not translate into better performance.