Forex Backtest Friday – Bollinger Bounce

Welcome to Forex Backtest Friday, a new post series where I share the backtest results of the market tendencies I investigate.

This week, we'll take a look at the classic Bollinger bounce.

The idea behind it is that after bouncing off the upper or lower Bollinger band, there is a tendency for prices to move back towards the middle of the Bollinger band channel.

Is there really such a tendency?

To test this, I coded an expert advisor and ran backtests across the 28 currency pairs from Jan 2009 to May 2020.

Bollinger band setting:

• Moving average period: 20
• Standard deviations: 2

Sell setup criteria (reverse for buy setup):

• Setup candle = Candle with top shadow crossing the upper Bollinger band
• The Setup candle must close below the upper Bollinger band
• The range of the candle before the Setup candle must be fully below the upper Bollinger band

Sell trade parameters (reverse for buy trade):

• Upon Setup candle close, enter a sell trade
• Stop loss = 1 pip above the Setup candle
• Profit target = same as the stop loss allowance (1:1 risk-reward)

*Note: This is not a proper trading strategy. I'm using only the most basic (crude) parameters to test for a mean-reversion tendency following a bounce off the Bollinger bands.

Backtest settings:

• Test period: 1 Jan 2009 - 31 May 2020
• No trades to be taken within 1 hour of market open
• Maximum 1 trade per currency pair, per day
• Trading costs are not considered

The Results

Here are the results of the backtest (click to view):