swingHigh Rtrend-followingmediumBest TF: 4hFailed out-of-sampleTV: Compiled (Pine v6 PASS)

EMA Pullback

In a trending market, wait for price to pull back to the 20-EMA, then enter in the direction of the trend.

Profitability — TV multi-year derived

NEGATIVE EV

RM/Day

-135

net MYR ÷ trading days

Trades/Day

1.4

avg trade frequency

Monthly Est

RM -2,972

RM/day × 22 days

Trading Days

1,038

2022-01-01 → 2026-04-25

Philosophy

“Trends breathe. The 20-EMA is where institutional money often re-enters. Don't chase — wait for the pullback, even if it means missing some moves.”

Walk-forward status: Failed out-of-sample

Every variant we walk-forward-tested collapsed out-of-sample (OOS SQN < 1.0 or negative). The in-sample numbers shown below are the RAW backtest — they did NOT transfer to unseen data. Reject for live trading.

This strategy: Mode A walk-forward on legacy_5m: ema100 variant had OOS SQN -3.80 (severe fail). Featured snap_4h config is untested on rolling, but the lower-TF variant collapses hard, which argues against the system in general.

Authoritative result · TV multi-year backtest

TradingView 5m, multi-year history

TV UNPROFITABLE

Net (MYR)

-140,235

Profit Factor

0.44

Win rate

16.1%

Trades

1406

Max DD (MYR)

+140,235

TV Wave-2 multi-year on 5m: WORST of the wave. -140k MYR, 16% WR, 1,406 trades. EMA20 gets touched constantly on 5m so the pullback bounce fires nonstop. This is a daily-TF strategy mis-applied to intraday.

Tested 2026-04-25. This is the load-bearing evidence — it overrides the 1-month sweep below.

Local 1-month sweep — in-sample only, weak signal

In-sample only — weak signal

SQN

0.94

Profit Factor

1.28

Win rate

42.9%

Trades

Net profit

MYR +5,535

Max drawdown

MYR +5,160

Dataset

snap_4h

Timeframe

Strategy properties

Style: swing
Profile: High R
Trades / day: 2.86
Avg bars held: —
TV compile status: Compiled (Pine v6 PASS)
Walk-forward: Failed out-of-sample

Parameters

emaPeriod: 20
touchTicks: 3

Applies to

Market: FCPO (Crude Palm Oil Futures, Bursa Malaysia)
Timeframe: 4h
Style: Swing (hours to days)
Complexity: 2-3 rules, some discretion

When it works

Did not show a stable edge in the sample — treat with caution.

Pine Script coming soon

Related strategies (trend-following)

Full raw backtest result

{
  "dataset": "snap_4h",
  "tf": "4h",
  "params": {
    "emaPeriod": 20,
    "touchTicks": 3
  },
  "trades": 63,
  "winRate": 42.86,
  "netProfitMYR": 5535,
  "profitFactor": 1.28,
  "sqn": 0.94,
  "maxDrawdownMYR": 5160
}