Indicators

The MACD zero line is not similar to an EMA 12/26 crossover — it is that crossover, on all 677 signals, with zero disagreements. So MACD adds one thing: a signal line that fires 2.2 times as often and a median 25 minutes earlier. That head start is worth 1.35 pips, and the extra trades cost more than it pays.

Same bars, same two-hour hold. Divergence made +133 pips across 92 trades; the textbook exit from 30/70 lost 231 across 436. After spread the gap is 708 pips — and hidden divergence, the continuation version, finished negative too.

Two trend indicators pointed the same way four days out of five. At a two-hour hold SAR was 1.34 pips better; at eight hours Supertrend was 2.89 pips better. Neither is better — they are better at different holding times.

Textbook settings against settings tuned on history, judged on six weeks neither had seen. Optimised finished +54.2 pips against -86.1 — and on Bollinger bands the optimiser searched 16 combinations and returned the default.

You do not need to download anything — MT4 already ships the two arrow logics that scored best. Here are the input boxes to change, why Deviation is in points and not pips, and the 60-second check for any arrow file you do download.

The same ZigZag arrows on the same 16,926 bars score 41.5 points apart depending on when you are allowed to click. And 85.5% of the arrows you watch being drawn are erased before the chart you review tomorrow is written.

The standard advice is to size the stop from ATR. On EURUSD M5 that formula produces a 4.4 pip stop, and every ATR multiple I tested lost money after spread.

The Tenkan/Kijun cross lost 392 pips on its own. The same cross, filtered only by which side of the cloud price sat on, made 308.8. The cloud is the part that works.

Supertrend halved the loss of an EMA crossover system. ADX above 25 doubled it. Stacking both was the worst of all four versions tested.