Manual Strategies

A London and New York overlap window, ADX above 25 and the EMA 200 side, each put on the same three entries on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. Head to head the time and ADX filters won 6 runs each. The one thing the time window did every time was cut trades by about 80%, which turned a 1,005-pip loss into a 196-pip loss.

4,362 trades from an EMA cross, an RSI and a Stochastic entry, sorted by the hour they opened, on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. The busiest hours stayed the busiest, but the six best hours before July 15 lost money after it: +0.33 pips a trade became -1.26 on EURUSD M5. 4 of 45 session windows passed every check, none on EURUSD.

The three-indicator combo against each single indicator, each pair, a 2 of 3 vote and a 50/200 EMA cross, on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. It was ahead of a single in 12 of 16 match-ups and of a pair in 9 of 12, but only 2 of those 28 gaps were bigger than sampling noise. What it reliably did was trade 73% to 80% less.

The beginner combo as exact rules: Stochastic cross from below 20, RSI cross of 50 and MACD signal cross within 6 bars, on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. Only 319 of 1,502 Stochastic signals got all three, the entry came 3.29 ATR off the low against 1.17 for the Stochastic alone, and the combo lost 1.17 pips a trade on EURUSD M5.

Triangle, wedge and channel breakouts against a plain close beyond the 30-bar high or low, on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. The box lost less per trade on all 4 charts, had fewer false breakouts on all 4, and hit its measured target 49% to 59% of the time against 35% to 36% for the patterns.

Triangles, wedges, channels, rectangles and flags found by rules from swing highs and lows on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. Ascending triangles broke down 54 of 77 times, wedges matched the textbook, and breakouts reached +1 ATR first only 40.7% to 47.3% of the time against about 50% for a random bar.

Five indicators, EURUSD and gold, 20 match-ups between entering on the first arrow and waiting for the close. On M15 the early entry did better 7 times in 10, on H1 the close 8 times in 10. Arrows that survived paid more early in 20 of 20; arrows that vanished lost in 20 of 20.

Higher highs and higher lows against price above the 200 EMA on the same bars. They agreed on 65% to 70% of bars. When they disagreed, structure was right 55.8% of the time on EURUSD M5 and the 200 EMA 57.8% on gold M15. Price crossed the 200 EMA 663 times on EURUSD M5, structure flipped 266 times.

Price action structure as exact rules: swing highs and lows, BOS, CHoCH and the higher low entry on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15, spread included. 0 of 32 runs passed. A break with the trend reached +1 ATR before -1 ATR 36.3% of the time on EURUSD M5, a random bar 49.4%. CHoCH beat BOS on all 4 charts.