MACD Signal-Line Crossovers with Trailing Stops on GBP/USD

Summary

This document describes a MACD crossover trading system on GBP/USD four-hour bars. With MACD settings of 12/26/9, it opens buys when MACD moves above its signal line and sells when it moves below, reversing or closing positions according to the crossover. The reported setup uses one lot, a 50-point stop loss, no fixed take profit, and a 75-point trailing stop.

A historical test covers a period in 2013 and reports 17 trades, a net gain of 3,656.40 from a starting deposit of 10,000, and relative drawdown of 16.80%. Eight trades were profitable and nine lost; the trade list shows both stop-loss exits and trades closed after trailing stops moved. These results are limited evidence: the sample is short, the report uses opening-price modeling with no modeling-quality value, and it gives no out-of-sample validation, transaction-cost discussion, or comparison against a benchmark. The results do not establish that the rules will perform similarly in other periods or market conditions.

Key ideas

• The system uses MACD settings of 12/26/9 and trades crossovers against the signal line.
• A 50-point stop loss and 75-point trailing stop manage exits, with no fixed take-profit level.
• The reported GBP/USD four-hour test contains 17 trades over a limited 2013 period.
• The test reports positive net profit alongside relative drawdown of 16.80%.
• The short, limited-quality backtest does not establish robustness or future performance.

Tags

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