Five- and 21-Period EMA Crossovers for Long-Short Trend Following

Summary

This strategy uses 5-period and 21-period exponential moving averages to trade in both directions. A cross of the shorter EMA above the longer EMA closes any short position and opens a long one; a cross below closes any long position and opens a short one. The source specifies no pyramiding and sets position size to 100% of account equity. Although the article describes a date filter, the supplied source contains no corresponding date condition.

The document explains the rules and suggests filters, stop methods, and position-sizing changes, but provides no strategy performance results. It identifies whipsaws in sideways markets, signal lag, and the absence of explicit stop-loss or profit-taking rules as risks. The published backtest uses ETH/USDT futures with daily bars from January to early April 2025, which is a short sample and does not establish robustness. The prose also describes the strategy as suitable for medium- to long-term trends, while the fast and slow EMA periods themselves depend on the chart interval used.

Key ideas

• A 5-period EMA crossing above or below a 21-period EMA reverses the position direction.
• The source sets position size to 100% of equity and disables pyramiding.
• The described time filter is not present in the supplied strategy source.
• The strategy has no explicit stop-loss or take-profit, leaving exposure to large adverse moves and profit giveback.
• No performance results are supplied, and crossover whipsaws and lag remain key limitations.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.