0bps

Strategy vault / Machine learning

Broken High Low Strategy

The Broken High/Low strategy is a trend-following strategy that tracks price breakouts beyond the high or low of the previous candlestick. It uses moving averages to determine the trend direction and enters on…

Author
ChaoZhang
Complexity
Intermediate · 86 lines
Parameters
18
Backtest bar
1d · swing
Tested on
BTC/USDT · futures

IMG

Overview

The Broken High/Low strategy is a trend-following strategy that tracks price breakouts beyond the high or low of the previous candlestick. It uses moving averages to determine the trend direction and enters on breakout points, with stop loss or trailing stop loss to lock in profits.

Strategy Logic

The key conditions for entry and exit determined by this strategy are:

  1. Identify if the candlestick is green or red to determine if it is an up candle or down candle
  2. Check if the current candle breaks the high or low of the previous candle
  3. Use fast and slow moving averages to define the trend direction
  4. Go long when an up candle breaks above the high of a previous down candle, go short when a down candle breaks below the low of a previous up candle
  5. Exit conditions are triggered by stop loss or trailing stop; can also exit immediately if a reversal candle appears

The strategy also uses filters based on the second reversal candle to avoid false breakouts and ensure signal reliability.

Advantage Analysis

  • Clear strategy orientation, easy to grasp breakout operations
  • Ensures correct trend judgment by combining dual moving averages
  • Trailing stop helps lock in more profits
  • Reversal candle filters help avoid chasing highs and killing lows

Risk Analysis

  • Failed breakout can cause loss from ultra short-term operations
  • Larger risk of false breakout in range-bound markets
  • Dual moving averages may lag, leading to judgment errors

Risk Control Measures:

  1. Select indexes or major benchmarks to avoid high risk of individual stocks
  2. Optimize moving average parameters to improve judgment accuracy
  3. Reasonably expand stop loss range to control single trade loss

Optimization Directions

This strategy can be optimized in the following aspects:

  1. Test different combinations of moving average parameters
  2. Test incorporating other technical indicators for combo judgment
  3. Optimize parameters of entry and stop loss levels
  4. Add quantitative filtering rules to select high quality underlying
  5. Incorporate machine learning algorithms for adaptive parameter optimization

Summary

The Broken High/Low strategy is overall a mature trend-following strategy. With the help of moving averages for auxiliary judgment, it can capture certain degree of trends. The stop loss and trailing stop mechanisms also help lock in profits. Through continuous testing and optimization, the parameters and performance of this strategy can become more outstanding.

Parameters

NameDefaultWhat it controls
v_input_bool_1false(?Exit strategy)Use trail stop EMA
v_input_18Trail stop EMA length
v_input_bool_5falseUsing opposing bar as exit
v_input_25(?Trend strength)Fast MA length
v_input_bool_2falseFast EMA enabled (default is SMA)
v_input_310Slow MA length
v_input_bool_3falseSlow EMA enabled (default is SMA)
v_input_bool_4falseUse fast MA for trend ignoring slow MA
v_input_bool_6falseSecond bar that eliminates opposing bar for entry
v_input_bool_7true(?Trade settings)Enable longs
v_input_bool_8trueEnable shorts
v_input_int_1true(?Time filters)FromMonth
v_input_int_2trueFromDay
v_input_int_31990FromYear
v_input_int_4trueToMonth
v_input_int_5trueToDay
v_input_int_69999ToYear
v_input_bool_9falseClose trades end of day

Source Pine Script

/*backtest
start: 2022-12-15 00:00:00
end: 2023-12-21 00:00:00
period: 1d
basePeriod: 1h
exchanges: [{"eid":"Futures_Binance","currency":"BTC_USDT"}]
*/

//@version=5
strategy("Broken High/Low Strategy", overlay=true, initial_capital = 5000, default_qty_value = 25, pyramiding = 10, default_qty_type= strategy.percent_of_equity)

useEMAForStop = input.bool(false, 'Use trail stop EMA', group = 'Exit strategy')
trailStopMALength = input(8, 'Trail stop EMA length', group = 'Exit strategy')

fastMALength = input(5 , 'Fast MA length', group = 'Trend strength')
fastEMAEnabled = input.bool(false, 'Fast EMA enabled (default is SMA)', group = 'Trend strength')

slowMALength = input(10, 'Slow MA length', group = 'Trend strength')
slowEMAEnabled = input.bool(false, 'Slow EMA enabled (default is SMA)', group = 'Trend strength')

ignoreSlowMA = input.bool(false, 'Use fast MA for trend ignoring slow MA', group = 'Trend strength')

useOpposingBarAsExit = input.bool(false, 'Using opposing bar as exit', group = 'Exit strategy')
secondEntryEnabled = input.bool(false, 'Second bar that eliminates opposing bar for entry', group = 'Trend strength')

longsEnabled = input.bool(true, 'Enable longs', group = 'Trade settings')
shortsEnabled = input.bool(true, 'Enable shorts', group = 'Trade settings')

fastMA = fastEMAEnabled ? ta.ema(close, fastMALength) : ta.sma(close, fastMALength)
slowMA = slowEMAEnabled ? ta.ema(close, slowMALength) : ta.sma(close, slowMALength)

FromMonth=input.int(defval=1,title="FromMonth",minval=1,maxval=12, group = 'Time filters')
FromDay=input.int(defval=1,title="FromDay",minval=1,maxval=31, group = 'Time filters')
FromYear=input.int(defval=1990,title="FromYear",minval=1900, group = 'Time filters')
ToMonth=input.int(defval=1,title="ToMonth",minval=1,maxval=12, group = 'Time filters')
ToDay=input.int(defval=1,title="ToDay",minval=1,maxval=31, group = 'Time filters')
ToYear=input.int(defval=9999,title="ToYear",minval=2017, group = 'Time filters')
start=timestamp(FromYear,FromMonth,FromDay,00,00)
finish=timestamp(ToYear,ToMonth,ToDay,23,59)
window()=>time>=start and time<=finish?true:false
afterStartDate = time >= start and time<=finish?true:false
closeTradesEOD = input.bool(false, 'Close trades end of day', group = 'Time filters')

trailStopMA = ta.ema(close, trailStopMALength)

isGreenCandle = close > open
isRedCandle = close < open
isBrokenHigh = close > open[1]
isPriorCandleRed = close[1] < open[1]
isPriorPriorCandleRed = close[2] < open[2]
isPriorPriorCandleGreen = close[2] > open[2]
isPriorCandleGreen = close[1] > open[1]
isBrokenLow = close < open[1]

isPriorRedCandleBroken = isGreenCandle and isPriorCandleRed and isBrokenHigh
isPriorGreenCandleBroken = isRedCandle and isPriorCandleGreen and isBrokenLow

isPriorPriorRedCandleBroken = secondEntryEnabled and not isPriorRedCandleBroken and isGreenCandle and isPriorPriorCandleRed ? close > open[2] : false
isPriorPriorGreenCandleBroken = secondEntryEnabled and not isPriorGreenCandleBroken and isRedCandle and isPriorPriorCandleGreen ? close < open[2] : false

longOpenCondition = (isPriorRedCandleBroken or isPriorPriorRedCandleBroken) and afterStartDate and (ignoreSlowMA ? close > fastMA : fastMA > slowMA) and longsEnabled
longCloseCondition = useOpposingBarAsExit ? isRedCandle : ta.crossunder(close, fastMA)
longCloseCondition := useEMAForStop ? ta.crossunder(close, trailStopMA) : longCloseCondition

shortOpenCondition = (isPriorGreenCandleBroken or isPriorPriorGreenCandleBroken) and afterStartDate and (ignoreSlowMA ? close < fastMA : fastMA < slowMA) and shortsEnabled
shortCloseCondition = useOpposingBarAsExit ? isGreenCandle : ta.crossover(close, fastMA)
shortCloseCondition := useEMAForStop ? ta.crossover(close, trailStopMA) : shortCloseCondition

if (longOpenCondition)
    strategy.entry("Long Entry", strategy.long)

if (longCloseCondition)
    strategy.close('Long Entry', 'Long Exit')

if (shortOpenCondition)
    strategy.entry("Short Entry", strategy.long)

if (shortCloseCondition)
    strategy.close('Short Entry', 'Short Exit')

if (closeTradesEOD and hour >= 14 and minute >= 30)
    strategy.close_all("EOD")

plot(useEMAForStop ? trailStopMA : na, linewidth = 2, color = color.red)
plot(fastMA)
plot(ignoreSlowMA ? na : slowMA, linewidth = 4)

Published by ChaoZhang on the FMZ strategy square · last modified 2023-12-22. Collected in the Quant Trading Vault. Unvalidated research: re-test with your own data and costs before trusting it.

Build this with AgenKit

A spec is not a trading system. Paste this into your coding agent and AgenKit runs a specialist team — architecture, test-first build, risk gates, review — with paper trading on by default.

in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex & 4 more
/agenkit build a production-grade trading bot with a backtest engine, risk controls and paper trading by default from strategies/Broken-High-Low-Strategy.md
  1. npx agenkit install engineering-kit in your project
  2. Paste the command into your agent and approve each phase
  3. Get tests, backtest, risk controls and a paper-trading switch

Understand it first

Before you run this, read the lesson behind the idea and how to backtest it honestly. Specs like this one are the survivors of an unknown number of trials; deflate their results accordingly.

Related specs

esc

Try , , or .

↑↓ move↵ open