Strategy test · breakout

Does Donchian breakout work?

Close beyond the 20-bar channel. Tested on every popular stock and coin, with real trading costs taken off.

The short answer

After costs, it kept money on 21 of the 48 stocks and coins we test.

It gave a signal 8,530 times and worked 2,244 of them (26%). On average each trade lost -0.01R.

Instrument	Kept a trade	Hit rate	Worked	Signals
AVAX Avalanche	+0.16R	30%	72	238
MSFT Microsoft	+0.15R	29%	50	174
HOOD Robinhood	+0.14R	34%	59	176
BAC Bank of America	+0.12R	30%	53	177
SOL Solana	+0.12R	31%	69	222
COST Costco	+0.10R	30%	50	167
NFLX Netflix	+0.10R	29%	58	200
DOGE Dogecoin	+0.09R	29%	52	180
AAPL Apple	+0.08R	31%	58	186
META Meta	+0.08R	32%	54	170
NVDA NVIDIA	+0.06R	33%	56	169
KO Coca-Cola	+0.06R	25%	44	173
QQQ Nasdaq 100 ETF	+0.06R	31%	63	202
MSTR Strategy (MicroStrategy)	+0.04R	30%	50	164
JPM JPMorgan Chase	+0.04R	29%	51	175
CRWD CrowdStrike	+0.03R	28%	52	185
BA Boeing	+0.03R	30%	54	181
ADA Cardano	+0.03R	29%	64	222
AMD AMD	+0.02R	29%	50	174
AMC AMC Entertainment	+0.02R	22%	37	172
SNOW Snowflake	+0.02R	25%	42	165
ARM Arm Holdings	0.00R	28%	24	87
NKE Nike	-0.01R	27%	46	172
DIS Disney	-0.01R	23%	43	183
TSLA Tesla	-0.03R	31%	48	156
VOO Vanguard S&P 500 ETF	-0.04R	25%	54	220
LINK Chainlink	-0.04R	28%	58	206
ETH Ethereum	-0.05R	23%	54	231
SOFI SoFi	-0.06R	26%	40	154
COIN Coinbase	-0.06R	26%	42	164
SMCI Super Micro Computer	-0.06R	27%	42	157
F Ford	-0.06R	24%	39	163
XRP XRP	-0.07R	27%	49	180
WMT Walmart	-0.07R	22%	36	167
SPY S&P 500 ETF	-0.07R	24%	52	221
BTC Bitcoin	-0.07R	23%	58	248
PLTR Palantir	-0.08R	25%	47	187
INTC Intel	-0.10R	27%	40	150
UBER Uber	-0.11R	23%	40	177
RDDT Reddit	-0.11R	28%	17	61
GME GameStop	-0.12R	19%	33	177
LTC Litecoin	-0.13R	23%	46	198
GOOGL Alphabet (Google)	-0.14R	22%	38	171
RIVN Rivian	-0.14R	18%	32	173
PYPL PayPal	-0.14R	19%	32	172
AVGO Broadcom	-0.15R	22%	32	145
AMZN Amazon	-0.19R	19%	32	169
SHOP Shopify	-0.21R	19%	32	169

How we tested

Up to 5 years of daily prices for each stock and coin.
Every time the strategy leaned up or down, we took a pretend trade that way. Stop 1.5 ATR away, target 2.25 ATR away, closed after 10 trading days if it hit neither. ATR is how much the price usually moves in a day.
Worked means it reached the target before the stop. If both were touched on the same day, we count it as a loss.
Costs come off every trade: 0.02% a round trip for stocks, 0.2% for crypto.
Kept a trade is in R, the amount risked. +0.10R means 10 cents kept for every dollar risked, on average, after costs.
Strategies that fired fewer than 40 times on a stock are left out: that few is luck.

Re-run every day. Past results do not promise future ones. This is software output, not financial advice.

Other breakout strategies

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Orenth runs all 34 strategies on any stock or coin, and says so when none of them has an edge.

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Analysis software, not financial advice. Every figure here is measured from historical price data and can stop describing the future at any moment. Day trading loses money for the large majority of retail participants, and this tool's own measurements agree with that. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
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Analysing

Fetching data, running 34 strategies, and back-testing each one against this instrument's own history.