Forex Indicators List, Ranked: 21 Rules on 4 Charts, 6 of 84 Runs Passed, and the Only Double Winner Ranked Last on EURUSD M5

Search for a forex indicators list and you get ten names, a screenshot of each and the word “best”. None of the lists I found says what any indicator did on a chart. I have tested most of them one by one on this blog, so the obvious next step was one table.

The catch is that each earlier test used its own exit. A list is only fair if every rule plays by the same rules, so I re-ran all of them on one exit, one cost and one pass mark.

How was it tested?

• Data: EURUSD M5 from June 3 to August 26, 2026, 16,926 bars; gold M5 from June 16 to August 26, 13,736 bars. M15 built from the same bars, 5,642 and 4,577 of them.
• Rules: 21 entry rules from 16 indicators, each with its usual default numbers. Entry at the close of the signal bar.
• The same exit for every rule: stop 1.5 ATR(14), target 3 ATR, 48 bars at most, one trade at a time. Cost 1 pip on EURUSD, $0.30 an ounce on gold.
• Pass: profit after cost, profit in both halves (split July 15), and above the 95th percentile of 200 random-entry runs with the same exit and the same number of trades.

One exit for all is the point. Every indicator on this list has been tested on this blog before, but each with its own stop, target or hold, so the results could not be put in one column. Here they can.

What does the full ranked list look like?

Profit per trade after cost: pips on EURUSD, dollars an ounce on gold. The number in brackets is the rank on that chart, 1 to 21. Bold means the run passed all three checks. Sorted by average rank across the four charts.

The top of the list is crowded and thin. Ichimoku, the MACD zero-line cross, Supertrend and the DMI cross all average between 7 and 8, and each of them sits in the bottom half on at least one chart. Ichimoku went from 17th on EURUSD M5 to 1st on gold M15. The bottom is more stable: the Keltner channel breakout ranked 15th to 21st everywhere and made money nowhere, and the Bollinger breakout ranked 11th to 19th.

Which indicators actually passed?

Six passes from five rules, all of them on gold M5 or EURUSD M15. The EMA 9/21 cross was the only rule to pass twice, and on EURUSD M5 it was the worst of the 21 at -1.68 pips a trade. A crossover that does well on one chart and worst on another is the normal case here, not the odd one. Moving average settings on their own are in moving average settings for MT4.

Gold M15 shows why “made money” is not the bar. 11 of 21 rules were in profit there and 0 passed, because random entries with the same exit came out at -0.01 dollars a trade and the 95th percentile was +3.14. Gold drifted up in steady legs in this period and almost anything long-biased looked good. The same trap came up in gold vs EURUSD with one rule.

Does a rank on one chart carry over to the next?

Spearman rank correlation of the 21 results: +1 would mean the same order on both charts, 0 no relation, -1 the order reversed. The last column is how often two random orderings of 21 rules matched at least that well.

None of the six pairs was better than chance. The two closest, EURUSD M15 against gold M15 at +0.29, would happen with random orders 11% of the time. EURUSD M5 against gold M15 came out at -0.51: the rules that lost least on one were mostly the ones that lost most on the other.

Did the order hold from the first half to the second?

Only EURUSD M5 kept its order, at +0.50, and that is the chart where all 21 rules lost money. The order there is a ranking of how slowly each rule loses, and the rules that trade at the extremes of a range, RSI, Stochastic and Bollinger re-entries, lose slowest. On the other three charts a first-half table predicted nothing. RSI 30/70 was in the first-half top 3 on three charts and finished 21st of 21 in the second half on gold M5. Why picking the best past setting backfires is in optimized vs default settings.

What does the spread do to the list?

On EURUSD M5 four rules were slightly up before cost and not one was up by more than a pip. With a median ATR of 1.96 pips, a 1 pip spread is half a bar’s range, and a rule that trades 15 to 42 times a day pays it every time. The longer the chart, the smaller the spread is against the move: by gold M15 the $0.30 cost was about a thirtieth of the 8.52 dollar ATR and 11 of 21 rules cleared it. What the spread and swap cost on a real account is in spread and swap costs in MT4.

So which indicator should you put on your chart?

• There is no best indicator in this list. 6 of 84 runs passed, no rule passed on more than two charts, and none stayed in the top 10 everywhere.
• Pick the chart before the indicator. The same 21 rules went from 0 profitable on EURUSD M5 to 11 on gold M15. Timeframe and cost moved the results more than the choice of indicator.
• Do not trust a ranking from one chart. Rank correlations between charts ran from -0.51 to +0.29, none better than chance.
• Compare with random entries, not with zero. On gold M15 11 rules made money and none beat the random benchmark. The method is in algorithmic rule vs random entry.
• Treat an indicator as a filter, not a system. Complete systems with filters did no better: see forex trading systems tested.

How trend rules compare with overbought and oversold oscillators on this table is in trend indicators vs oscillators. Where to find every indicator in MetaTrader and what its default settings are is in the forex indicators list for MT4.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best forex indicator?

On this data, none. The EMA 9/21 cross came closest with 2 passes from 4 charts, and it was the worst of 21 rules on EURUSD M5.

How many indicators were tested?

21 entry rules from 16 indicators: moving averages, MACD, RSI, Stochastic, Bollinger Bands, Parabolic SAR, ADX/DMI, Ichimoku, CCI, Williams %R, Heikin Ashi, Supertrend, HalfTrend, QQE, Keltner channel and Donchian channel.

Why did every indicator lose on EURUSD M5?

Because of the spread. Not one rule moved price in its favour by more than the 1 pip spread before cost, and the faster rules paid it 15 to 42 times a day.

Why use the same exit for every indicator?

So the list compares entries and nothing else. With a different stop and target for each rule, the table would rank exits.

Is this list valid for other pairs?

It is two markets and about three months. The point that carries over is that the order changed from chart to chart, so test your own pair before trusting any list.