How It Works
- Compute a very short 2-bar RSI (a dip detector), a 200-bar SMA (the long-term trend filter), and a 5-bar SMA (the exit line).
- Buy when the 2-bar RSI drops below 10 while the close is still above the 200-bar average — a sharp two-bar sell-off inside a market that is in a long-term uptrend.
- Sell as soon as the close rises back above its 5-bar average — the dip has bounced; the trade never waits for a big move.
Worked example. Price sits at 110 with the 200-bar average at 100, so the uptrend filter passes. Two straight down-bars knock price to 104 and push the 2-bar RSI to 6 — buy. Two bars later the close pops to 106.5, above its 5-bar average of 106 — sell the bounce.
The Math Behind The Indicators
Everything runs on closing prices of the traded timeframe: P is a close, Pt today's close, and N counts bars — one bar is one candle of that timeframe, so 20 bars on a 1h chart is 20 hours.
- Relative Strength Index (RSI)
- A 0–100 gauge of how one-sided recent moves have been. It compares G, the average size of up-moves, to L, the average size of down-moves, over the last N bars (using Wilder's smoothed averages): near 100 almost every recent bar went up, near 0 almost every bar went down, 50 is balanced.
- RSIN = 100 − 1001 + G/L
- Example: If over the last 14 bars up-moves averaged 2.0 and down-moves averaged 1.0, then G/L = 2 and RSI = 100 − 100 / 3 ≈ 67. Readings below 30 are called oversold, above 70 overbought.
- Simple Moving Average (SMA)
- The plain average of the last N closing prices: add them up, divide by N. It smooths out bar-to-bar noise so the underlying direction is easier to see — a rising SMA means recent prices sit above where they used to be.
- SMAN = P1 + P2 + … + PNN
- Example: With N = 3 and closes 100, 102, 104 the SMA is (100 + 102 + 104) / 3 = 102.
Example Chart
Example Chart
The Metrics
| Metric | Calculation | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Price Change % | change = Plast − P0P0 × 100 The traded market's own close against its first close over the same window, as a percentage. | What the market did while the rule was running — the benchmark every other row here is read against. A rule that made 40% in a market that made 120% lost to doing nothing. |
| Trades | N = count(closed positions) How many positions the rule opened and closed over the window. | The sample behind every other figure, and what the fees are charged on. Two rules with the same return are not the same rule if one took nine trades and the other took nine hundred. |
| Win Rate % | W%n = winsnn × 100 Of the first n trades, how many closed above the cash they opened with after fees. Plotted trade by trade, so the line is the rate so far rather than a final figure. | How often the rule is right, which is not how much it makes. A rule can win a third of its trades and still lead, if the third it wins pays for the two it loses. |
| Cumulative P&L % | PnL%n = n∑i=1(fi − 1) × 100 Each trade's percentage result added up, net of fees. A sum rather than a compounding, so a 10% gain and a 10% loss cancel. | What the rule returned per trade, with position size taken out of it. It answers whether the edge is in the trades themselves, where the equity curve answers what the account did with them. |
| Equity | En = E0 n∏i=1fi The account compounded through every trade — the whole balance goes into the next position. Drawn net of fees as a solid line and gross of them as a dotted one. | The account itself, which is the only figure a reader actually ends up with. The gap between the two lines is what the fees took, and it widens with every trade rather than staying a fixed share. |
| Cumulative Fees | Fn = n∑i=1(Ci φ + Xi φ) Fee charged on the way into each position and again on the way out, at rate phi, on the capital actually committed — so the bill grows with the account as well as with the trade count. | The cost of trading, in the account's own units. It is the one line here that only ever rises, and the one a rule cannot trade its way out of. |
| Rolling Sharpe | Sharpet = mean(rdaily)sd(rdaily) × √365 Mean daily return over its deviation, annualized on a 365-day year because crypto has no weekend. Taken on the account marked to market every bar — open positions included, not just closed ones — and read off at each trade's exit. | Return per unit of the swing it took to get it. It is the heaviest weight in the composite score, because an account that doubled calmly and one that doubled violently are not the same result. |