Bollinger bands pierce (long)long
Backtest Results @ EURUSD • 1 Hour

This stragegy buys when price breaks up from the Bollinger Bands upper band. This is believed to indicate the beginning of a big upmove. It then sells whenever price goes below the Bollinger Bands middle line. See whether buying the Bollinger Bands breakout is a good idea! We've backtested it.

Equity Curve

Backtest covers 19.5 months of EURUSD • 1 Hour (Euro vs USD spot (Interactive Brokers)) data, from December 6, 2023 to July 13, 2025.

Equity curve is the strategy's performance over time. You should compare it to the asset's Buy & Hold performance. In general, you want the blue area to be well above the gray area.

Drawdown is how much losses (realized or unrealized) the strategy has had if compared to the highest equity peak. Compare this to the asset's drawdown to see whether your strategy does a decent job of isolating you from downside volatility. In general, the red area must be well within the gray area.

Equity Curve
Strategy
Asset
Strategy Drawdown
Asset Drawdown

So, we have backtested Bollinger bands pierce (long) on 19.5 months of EURUSD • 1 Hour candles. This backtest resulted in 181 positions, with the average win rate of 40% and reward-risk ratio of 1.93. If you assume that 1.93 reward-to-risk ratio holds, you need a minimum win rate of 34.1 to be profitable. So you're looking good so far. The key metrics are as follows:

  1. Total Return: Total Return: 6.50% vs 8.40% for the asset
  2. Max Drawdown: Max Drawdown: -4.20% vs -9.00% for the asset
  3. Exposure: Exposure: 31.60% time in the market
  4. Win Rate: Win Rate: 40.0%, vs 34.1% minimum
  5. Reward/Risk Ratio: Reward/Risk Ratio: 1.93

With that exposure in mind, you can tell that for 32% time-in-market, you get 77.38% of the asset upside potential, and 46.67% of the asset downside potential.

Bollinger bands pierce (long): enter a position when

All of the following: # Echo
  60min Chart(close) (1 candles ago) < 60min Bollinger Bands ® (20, 2, 2, 0, close), Up (1 candles ago)
  60min Chart(close) > 60min Bollinger Bands ® (20, 2, 2, 0, close), Up

Bollinger bands pierce (long): exit a position when

All of the following: # Oscar
  60min Chart(close) < 60min Bollinger Bands ® (20, 2, 2, 0, close), Middle

Bollinger bands pierce (long) @ EURUSD • 1 Hour (6.5%) backtest results explained by Mike

Mike

Author

Yo fam, this Bollinger Bands strategy is looking kinda interesting! 🤔 The numbers are giving me some mixed vibes but there's definitely potential here.

First off, that 40% win rate might look sus, but peep this - we're actually crushing it with a 1.93 risk/reward ratio! 🚀 That means when we win, we're winning bigger than we're losing. The strategy's sitting pretty with a 39.66% win rate leeway above what we need to be profitable - that's some serious cushion right there! And only a 4.2% max drawdown? That's actually pretty chill for forex trading.

The thing that's got me a bit worried is the market exposure at 31.6% and that we're slightly underperforming buy & hold (6.5% vs 8.4%). But hey, we're using way less risk to get there! Plus, look at that 6-month performance hitting 16% CAGR - those are some juicy numbers! 💰 Might need to tweak the exit conditions a bit to squeeze more juice out of those winning trades, but overall this looks like it could be a decent base to build on. Not quite Lambo money yet, but definitely Wendy's-paycheck-to-moon potential! 🌙

Tabular metrics of Bollinger bands pierce (long) backtested on EURUSD • 1 Hour

Total Trades181Net Profit6.5%Buy & Hold Profit8.4%
Win Rate40%Reward/Risk Ratio1.93Max Drawdown-4.2%
Asset Max Drawdown-9.0%Exposure31.6%Avg Candles in Position15.7
Sharpe Ratio-0.57Sortino Ratio-0.98Realized Volatility3.79%
Max Winning Streak5Avg Winning Streak1.6Max Losing Streak11
Avg Losing Streak2.3Avg Trades per Month18.6Avg Trades per Day0.6
Return Std Dev0.4Loss Std Dev0.2Win Std Dev0.5
Expectancy0.2Beta0.33

All backtests for Bollinger bands pierce (long)

backtestexposurepeformance vs assetdrawdown vs assetwin%reward/risk
BTCUSDT • 1 Minute
24%(6.4%/8.9%) 0.72x(-2.3%/-1.9%) 1.21x452.9
EURUSD • 1 Minute
28%(0.2%/-0.9%) -0.22x(-0.6%/-1.2%) 0.50x342.1
GLD • 1 Minute
30%(2.6%/0.0%) Infinityx(-1.9%/-5.5%) 0.35x402.1
NVDA • 1 Minute
29%(10.9%/16.7%) 0.65x(-2.1%/-4.4%) 0.48x422.5
SPY • 1 Minute
30%(1.2%/4.6%) 0.26x(-1.9%/-2.1%) 0.90x342.2
TSLA • 1 Minute
31%(-15.1%/-10.3%) 1.47x(-16.7%/-21.4%) 0.78x311.5
WMT • 1 Minute
26%(-3.3%/-5.4%) 0.61x(-4.0%/-6.4%) 0.63x321.6
BTCUSDT • 10 Minutes
27%(7.2%/26.3%) 0.27x(-4.8%/-12.1%) 0.40x382.1
EURUSD • 10 Minutes
32%(2.3%/6.8%) 0.34x(-2.7%/-4.3%) 0.63x362.1
GLD • 10 Minutes
38%(6.0%/43.7%) 0.14x(-9.8%/-8.3%) 1.18x431.6
NVDA • 10 Minutes
33%(8.1%/32.9%) 0.25x(-26.2%/-42.8%) 0.61x441.4
SPY • 10 Minutes
33%(3.6%/14.3%) 0.25x(-7.7%/-20.7%) 0.37x421.6
TSLA • 10 Minutes
31%(4.5%/59.0%) 0.08x(-37.6%/-55.3%) 0.68x391.7
WMT • 10 Minutes
34%(25.4%/40.1%) 0.63x(-6.8%/-23.8%) 0.29x432.1
BTCUSDT • 1 Hour
30%(9.3%/71.3%) 0.13x(-17.2%/-30.6%) 0.56x381.8
EURUSD • 1 Hour
32%(6.5%/8.4%) 0.77x(-4.2%/-9.0%) 0.47x401.9
GLD • 1 Hour
35%(21.0%/117.6%) 0.18x(-28.2%/-22.2%) 1.27x411.8
NVDA • 1 Hour
36%(521.6%/3126.3%) 0.17x(-36.1%/-68.0%) 0.53x472.3
SPY • 1 Hour
36%(31.9%/106.7%) 0.30x(-11.2%/-35.1%) 0.32x461.6
TSLA • 1 Hour
34%(2572.3%/1395.5%) 1.84x(-29.3%/-75.1%) 0.39x463.1
WMT • 1 Hour
34%(62.8%/138.2%) 0.45x(-14.6%/-26.9%) 0.54x432.1
BTCUSDT • Daily
36%(320.8%/1335.5%) 0.24x(-61.6%/-76.6%) 0.80x403.2
EURUSD • Daily
29%(3.2%/10.8%) 0.30x(-10.2%/-23.3%) 0.44x302.7
GLD • Daily
33%(106.4%/595.1%) 0.18x(-23.8%/-45.3%) 0.53x452.1
NVDA • Daily
39%(9137.3%/373678.5%) 0.02x(-67.9%/-90.0%) 0.75x502.5
SPY • Daily
32%(32.3%/1316.3%) 0.02x(-33.3%/-56.7%) 0.59x421.7
TSLA • Daily
35%(8915.3%/24185.2%) 0.37x(-40.7%/-75.0%) 0.54x455.0
WMT • Daily
34%(-20.9%/9978.0%) -0.00x(-65.4%/-50.6%) 1.29x371.7