Manual Strategies

Five Ichimoku rules on EURUSD and gold M15 with the spread, two exits each. On gold four runs passed every check, led by the Tenkan/Kijun cross on the right side of the cloud at +$4.59 an ounce a trade. On EURUSD M15 none passed, and on EURUSD M5 all ten lost after cost.

Five forex trading systems taken apart on EURUSD and gold, M5 and M15. Removing the 200 EMA trend filter improved 8 of 12 runs. The system’s own stop and target beat a plain 12-bar hold in 13 of 20, and the Bollinger and RSI entry on gold M15 went from -$1.48 to +$1.69 an ounce a trade on its exit alone.

Five popular forex trading systems built in full, with filter, entry, stop and target, on EURUSD and gold M5 and M15 with the spread. On EURUSD M5 four lost and the London breakout lost in the second half. RSI-2 won 58% of trades and lost 0.72 pips each. Only Bollinger Bands plus RSI on gold M15 passed all three checks.

The same 20 moving average rules on M5, M15 and H1, EURUSD and gold. Slower charts made the spread cheaper and more rules look profitable, but no M15 or H1 rule was positive after cost, positive in both halves and better than random entries. Two M5 rules held for an hour were.

20 moving average scalping rules on 16,926 EURUSD and 13,736 gold M5 bars with a real spread. The 5/9, 5/20, 7/14, 8/21, 9/20 and 9/21 EMA crosses lost on EURUSD before cost. On gold a pullback to the 9 EMA in a 9/21 trend made +$0.40 an ounce per trade, positive in both halves.

The same entries with an ATR trailing stop or a fixed take profit. On 16,926 EURUSD M5 bars the 1.5 to 2 ATR trail beat every fixed target on all three entry types. On 13,736 gold bars every trail lost and a 1:3 target made $0.99 an ounce per trade in both halves.

Scalping RSI and swing RSI on the same 16,926 EURUSD bars. RSI 14 at 30/70 lost 0.94 pips as a scalp and made +4.98 as a swing trade; about a third of that came from holding longer. The period-times-12 shortcut tracked H1 RSI at 0.984 but stayed between 33.6 and 66.0.

The same RSI rules on M5, M15, H1 and H4 bars built from 16,926 EURUSD M5 bars. On M5 0 of 45 settings made money after a 1-pip cost, on H1 26 of 36 did. RSI 7 at 30/70 on H1 was the sturdiest: 113 trades, +3.02 pips, positive in both halves. Gold did not follow.

Four reversal indicators against one rule with no indicator: if EURUSD moved 5 pips in the last hour, trade against it. On 16,926 M5 bars the plain rule made +0.49 pips per trade before costs. Bollinger, Fractals, engulfing and RSI made -0.04 to -0.70, and RSI lost to the same move without it on every check.