A reader asked if I could backtest a trading strategy based on the RSI(2) technical indicator. Most RSI strategies trade mean reversion setups, however, this is actually a trend following strategy. The idea is to follow trends and use an RSI(2) pullback to get a better price entry. We wait for the RSI(2) to turn back […]
Amibroker
Does This Trading System Really Make 20% Per Year?
The trading website Finviz.com shows a simple strategy based on the RSI indicator with an annualised performance of 19.59% per pear. The rules are to go long a stock from the S&P 500 when RSI(5) crosses under 20 and to sell when RSI(5) crosses back over 50. The following chart shows the backtest performance published […]
Should You Ignore Financial Stocks?
The financial sector took a battering in the 2008 crash which led to at least two major headwinds for financial stocks: Financial companies became highly regulated. New laws came in that prevented banks and other institutions from making the big profits they were used to. Quantitative easing caused interest rates to drop to record lows. […]
Investigating Skewness And The Lottery Effect In Stocks
The lottery effect explains our willingness to accept poor odds for a chance to win a huge sum. It’s why millions of us play Lotto or the PowerBall despite huge odds of one in 292,201,338*. We don’t mind spending a few bucks for the chance to win a gigantic sum, even though the odds are […]
Testing The Half Day Reversal Strategy
While browsing Quantpedia I came across another interesting trading strategy called the Half-day Reversal. This is a short-term, mean reversion strategy that buys the worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 and holds them overnight. The indicated performance is 57.7% per annum with a Sharpe ratio of 3.03. These are incredible numbers so let’s put […]
The Truth About Intraday Momentum
A few years ago an interesting paper called Market Intraday Momentum was published which revealed a simple trading edge for the S&P 500 ETF. According to the paper, the first half-hour in the S&P 500 predicts the last half-hour. So if the first half-hour is positive, the last half-hour also tends to be positive. In […]
Double Top Pattern – Backtest Rules & Results
The double top pattern is a chart formation consisting of two consecutive price peaks that leads to a bearish reversal. For years, traders have claimed that the double top is a high probability short setup. This is because a double top pattern signifies that bulls are having trouble pushing the price past the prior high. […]
How To 10x Your Momentum Returns
The backbone of personal finance is to save more than you spend and invest the proceeds. The most common advice is to put your money into cheap index funds each month with a simple allocation split. But what if you want to try something more adventurous? Index investing may only provide returns of six or […]
RSI Or MFI – Which One Works Best?
RSI is one of the most popular technical indicators among quant traders, particularly the 2-period and 4-period RSI. Previous analysis and articles have shown how RSI(2) maintained a strong edge in stocks through most of the 2000s. The MFI indicator (money flow index) is similar to RSI but incorporates volume as well. MFI is not […]
Simple Volatility Strategy For VXX
I’ve spent the weekend looking into volatility and I stumbled upon a simple but effective volatility strategy. The idea is to go long the VXX ETF when volatility is rising and go short the ETF when volatility is falling. This is the opposite to the usual approach which is to short volatility on sharp rallies. […]
