RSI, Stochastic and MACD Settings for MT5: 47 of 55 Settings Made Money on Gold M15, and 9 of 231 on the Other Three Charts

MetaTrader 5 ships with all three oscillators, and each has a default that most people never touch. Forums are full of faster versions: RSI 7, Stochastic 5, 3, 3, MACD 5, 13, 5 “for scalping”. In the RSI, Stochastic and MACD combo test the default combo passed 0 of 16 runs. Here I changed every input to see whether the settings were the problem.

How do you set up RSI, Stochastic and MACD in MT5?

1. RSI: Insert, Indicators, Oscillators, Relative Strength Index. Period 14, Apply to Close. On the Levels tab add 50 next to 30 and 70; the combo uses the cross of 50.
2. Stochastic: Insert, Indicators, Oscillators, Stochastic Oscillator. %K period 14, %D period 3, Slowing 3, Price field Low/High, Method Simple. Levels 20 and 80 are there by default.
3. MACD: Insert, Indicators, Oscillators, MACD. Fast EMA 12, Slow EMA 26, MACD SMA 9, Apply to Close. In MT5 the MACD line is drawn as a histogram and the signal as a line: a buy cross is the first bar whose histogram closes above the line.
4. Save it: right-click the chart, Templates, Save Template. Each indicator opens its own window under the price, so three of them take about half the screen. Drag the borders to shrink them.
5. Read it on the closed bar. All three move while the candle is forming, and a cross seen mid-bar can be gone at the close. How often that happens is measured in bar close vs live signal.

The inputs and menu are the same in MT4, apart from the look of the MACD window. Differences between the two platforms are in MT4 vs MT5.

What exactly is the signal?

• Buy: %K crosses above %D with both below 20, RSI crosses above 50, and the MACD line crosses above its signal line. All three inside the waiting window, entry at the close of the bar where the last one happens.
• Sell: the mirror, with the Stochastic cross above 80.
• No trade if any of the three gives an opposite signal before the set is complete.

What did I test?

• RSI period: 7, 14, 21.
• Stochastic: 5, 3, 3 (fast), 14, 3, 3 (default), 21, 5, 5 (slow).
• MACD: 12, 26, 9 (default), 8, 17, 9, and 5, 13, 5 (fast).
• Waiting window: 3, 6 or 12 bars for all three signals to appear.
• Exit and cost: stop 1.5 ATR, target 3 ATR, 48 bars at most, one trade at a time; 1 pip per EURUSD trade and $0.30 an ounce on gold.
• Data: EURUSD and gold, June 3 to August 26, 2026, M5 and M15.
• 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 4 charts = 324 settings. 286 had at least 30 trades and are counted below.

How many settings made money?

The chart decided the result, not the setting. On EURUSD M5 all 81 settings lost money after a 1-pip cost; the best one (RSI 21, Stochastic 14, 3, 3, MACD 5, 13, 5, 3-bar window) still lost 0.88 pips a trade over 207 trades. On gold M15 almost anything worked. The same split showed up in the chart pattern settings and the Choppiness Index settings: gold fell to late June, ranged in July and rallied in August, and on M15 that gave entry rules room to work in this sample.

One caution before the input tables. The settings on one chart share most of their trades, and in the combo vs one indicator comparison gaps of this size were almost always inside sampling noise. Read the columns below as tendencies, not rankings.

Which RSI period should you use?

On M5 the RSI period changed nothing: three columns within 0.03 pips of each other on EURUSD. On M15 a slower RSI was better on both markets, and RSI 7 was the worst choice. A fast RSI crosses 50 on every small swing, so it agrees with the other two too easily.

Fast, default or slow Stochastic?

No Stochastic setting won everywhere. The default 14, 3, 3 was best on both M5 charts, and on gold M5 it was the only one with any profitable settings: 7 of 27 against 0 for the fast and the slow version. The slow 21, 5, 5 was best on gold M15 and worst on the other three charts. Stochastic inputs on their own are covered in the Stochastic settings guide.

Does a faster MACD help?

The “scalping” MACD 5, 13, 5 was the worst on three of four charts, and on EURUSD M15 it lost twice as much per trade as the default. The default 12, 26, 9 was best or within 0.1 of the best on all four. MACD inputs alone are in the MACD settings guide.

How long should you wait for all three?

No window length was best everywhere, and the window mattered less than the chart. On gold M15 the 6-bar window was the cleanest: all 19 settings with enough trades made money. A 3-bar window often leaves too few trades on M15 to judge at all; only 9 of 27 gold M15 settings reached 30 trades with it.

Which setting passed every check?

On gold M15 this setting made money in both halves of the data and beat the best 5% of 200 runs of random entries with the same exit and number of trades. Its profit factor was 2.45. A second slow setting, RSI 21 with the same Stochastic and MACD and a 12-bar window, also passed: +$7.06 a trade over 44 trades, against +$4.67 for the best 5% of random entries. The two share most of their trades, so this is one finding, not two.

The same setting lost on the other three charts, on gold M5 by $3.03 an ounce a trade. One market, one timeframe and 31 trades is a thin base, and 324 settings give luck plenty of chances. The honest reading: a slow Stochastic with default RSI and MACD on gold M15 is worth re-testing on fresh bars, and nothing here is worth trading on EURUSD M5.

What settings to start with

• Keep the defaults for RSI (14) and MACD (12, 26, 9). Nothing faster did better.
• Skip the “scalping” set. RSI 7 with MACD 5, 13, 5 was the worst pairing on gold M15 and the second worst on EURUSD M15.
• Stochastic: 14, 3, 3 on M5. On M15, 21, 5, 5 is worth a look on gold, not on EURUSD.
• Window: 6 bars. Longer waits add later entries; the price of waiting is measured in the combo test.
• Timeframe before settings. M15 gave the only results worth re-testing. On EURUSD M5, 0 of 81 settings made money.

For why a setting tuned on old bars often fails on new ones, see optimized vs default settings.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best RSI, Stochastic and MACD settings for MT5?

The defaults held up well: RSI 14, Stochastic 14, 3, 3 and MACD 12, 26, 9 ranked in the top 8 settings on three of four charts. On gold M15 a slower Stochastic 21, 5, 5 made +$8.19 an ounce a trade over 31 trades. No setting made money on EURUSD M5.

Are faster settings better for scalping?

Not here. MACD 5, 13, 5 was the worst MACD setting on three of four charts, and RSI 7 was the worst RSI on both M15 charts.

How do I add RSI, Stochastic and MACD to one chart in MT5?

Insert, Indicators, Oscillators, then each one in turn. Add level 50 to the RSI, keep the others at default, and save the layout with Templates, Save Template.

How many bars should I wait for all three to agree?

About 6. It was the most consistent window on gold M15, where all 19 settings with enough trades made money. The window mattered less than the chart.

Does the combo work on EURUSD?

Not in this test. 0 of 81 settings made money on EURUSD M5 and 2 of 70 on M15, after a 1-pip cost.