Time Series Momentum

How this strategy trades, what it scored, and the measurements the score was read from: every symbol and timeframe, on real and resampled history.

How It Trades

  1. Measure the trailing 90-bar return: how far price has moved over roughly the past quarter of bars.
  2. Stay long while that return is positive: the market is in an uptrend by the simplest possible definition.
  3. Exit when it turns negative, and stay out until it recovers.

Example Strategy

Pine Script

Paste it into TradingView’s Pine Editor to run these rules on any chart.

//@version=6
// Time Series Momentum — sort.finance. Fills at the signal bar's close, 0.02% fee a side,
// whole account per trade, as the backtest. History and indicator warm-up
// differ from the site's, so expect close to the same trades, not identical.
strategy("Time Series Momentum", overlay=false,
     initial_capital=100, default_qty_type=strategy.percent_of_equity,
     default_qty_value=100, commission_type=strategy.commission.percent,
     commission_value=0.02, process_orders_on_close=true, pyramiding=0)

// The bar the current position opened on, and the bar the last one closed on.
var int entryBar = na
var int exitBar = -1

// ── Signals ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
momentum = (close / close[90] - 1) * 100
above = momentum > 0
enterNow = above and not above[1]
exitNow = not above and above[1]

// ── Orders ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
// Open on the first bar the entry holds while flat; close on the first
// later bar the exit holds; never reopen on the bar a position closed.
inTrade = strategy.position_size != 0
if inTrade and bar_index > entryBar and exitNow
    strategy.close("Long")
    exitBar := bar_index
else if not inTrade and bar_index > exitBar and enterNow
    strategy.entry("Long", strategy.long)
    entryBar := bar_index

// ── Drawing ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
plot(momentum, "Momentum", color=#4d8dff)
hline(0, "Zero", color=color.new(#8a92a0, 40), linestyle=hline.style_dashed)