STEADYTRADE
Strategy backtests · past-window simulation, not investment advice

EMA Cross

Same idea as MA Cross but exponentially weighted — reacts faster, whipsaws more.

What it is

Reference — Glowwiki: Moving Average Crossover
The definitions and formulas below follow that article. It states its own limit plainly:
“Whether this produces profit is not addressed in that article.”
That is the question this page answers.

Note from the reference: The reference states the crossover does not predict future direction, and cites a named source concluding that the death cross is not a reliable indicator of future market declines. It also defines golden and death crosses strictly as the 50-day and 200-day simple moving averages crossing. Neither configuration on this site is that pair, so neither is a golden cross under that definition.

Formulas

Exponential moving average
EMAₜ = α·Cₜ + (1−α)·EMAₜ₋₁, α = 2/(n+1)
Recent closes carry more weight than older ones

Established

These rest on a single line of sourcing. The Glowwiki reference article draws on the same encyclopaedia cited here, so two domains do not make two independent accounts. Nothing below has been checked against a second, separately grounded source. It is listed as established because the sources state it as definition rather than as finding — not because it has been cross-verified.

Conventional reading

Listed as convention, not as established fact.

Sources

  1. Moving Average Crossover — Glowwiki (en)
  2. Technical analysis — Wikipedia (en)
  3. Moving average crossover — Wikipedia (en)

The short answer

Beat buy & hold in 2 of 3 markets tested.

BTC/USDT +1138% · Gold (PAXG) -51%. A rule that wins in one market and loses in another did not find an edge; it found a rising asset. Each figure is measured only against buying and holding that same market over that same period.

MarketReturnBuy & holdvs B&HBeat itMax DDUnderwaterGrid beat
BTC/USDT 1668% 530% +1138% yes 59% 790d 100%
ETH/USDT 1197% 276% +921% yes 69% 1961d 100%
Gold (PAXG) 67% 119% -51% no 17% 1052d 6%

All figures on this page are from daily candles unless a row says otherwise.

Evidence

Everything below is the same rules run over real price history. Pick a market to see the fills, the equity path and the parameter grid for it.

Daily candlesBTC/USDT · 3188 bars · 2018-01-01 → 2026-09-23
Total return
1668.3%
10,000 → 176,827
vs buy & hold
+1138.4%
over the same period 529.9%
Max drawdown
59.1%
10,000 → 5,514
Longest underwater
790
790 days · 95% of the period
Settings that beat it
16 / 16
of 16 parameter settings tested
Win rate
34%
95% CI 22%–48% · n=47
A 0% risk of ruin here is a property of the test, not a safety rating. These runs are long-only spot with no borrowed money, so there is no margin call and nothing can force the position closed. The account cannot be wiped out — it gets stuck holding the asset instead. Capital deployed (19×) and max drawdown (59.1%) are the numbers that carry the risk on this page. The same rules run on margin would be a different measurement, and this figure would not stay at zero.
Daily candles
account equitybuy & holddashed = starting capital

95 fills. Signals are taken on the close and filled at the next open.

Timeframe

Everything above uses the daily row. These are the same rules and the same parameters on a different candle size.

TimeframeReturnBuy & holdvs B&HBeat itTrades
4H 460%524% -63% no322
1D ← 1668%530% +1138% yes47
1W 483%524% -40% no5

Outcome distribution

A single return is one chosen start date. These are 95 runs of the same rules with the start shifted forward 30 days at a time.

Worstp10p25Medianp75p90BestLosing starts
-53.6%-22.0%-7.2% 11.1%91.0% 136.1%502.5%38%

Does it survive its own parameters?

The headline above uses one parameter setting. Here is every setting tested: 16 combinations, median 1612.2%, best 2514.7%, worst 1022.4%. 16 of them beat buy & hold.

Parameter grid

EMA Cross run across its own parameter range over the full period. The same rules flip from profit to loss depending only on the numbers you picked — which is why a single headline return is meaningless on its own.

fast 5fast 9fast 12fast 21
slow 261174%1650%1668%1089%
slow 501881%2019%1698%1264%
slow 1002515%2214%1612%1490%
slow 2001244%1078%1985%1022%

Hover a cell for trade count and drawdown. “·” = invalid combination (fast ≥ slow).

Year by year

Year201820192020202120222023202420252026
Return-38%130%223%46%-53%70%74%11%12%
Max DD41%37%18%32%53%14%30%19%14%
Trades633563545
Recent closed trades 47 closed trades — showing the last 40
EnteredEntry ExitedExitHeld SizeP&L (USDT)Return
2026-08-07 64,355.77 2026-08-13 63,448.25 6 bars 144,228.57 -2,317.96 -1.6%
2026-07-16 64,788.66 2026-08-02 62,792.24 17 bars 149,112.1 -4,883.54 -3.3%
2026-04-10 71,823.87 2026-05-23 75,501.73 43 bars 142,132.5 +6,979.6 +4.9%
2026-03-24 70,941.9 2026-03-27 68,785.9 3 bars 146,880.93 -4,748.42 -3.2%
2026-03-16 72,851.66 2026-03-23 67,825.07 7 bars 158,082.28 -11,201.35 -7.1%
2026-01-06 93,906.64 2026-01-25 89,180.73 19 bars 166,792.71 -8,710.43 -5.2%
2025-10-02 118,654.29 2025-10-16 110,707.9 14 bars 179,122.64 -12,329.93 -6.9%
2025-09-14 115,976.25 2025-09-26 108,939.99 12 bars 191,073.64 -11,951 -6.3%
2025-06-26 107,394.26 2025-08-21 114,214.09 56 bars 180,024.14 +11,049.5 +6.1%
2025-04-20 85,119.54 2025-06-22 102,068.96 63 bars 150,430.16 +29,593.98 +19.7%
2025-01-17 100,037.29 2025-02-06 96,564.13 20 bars 156,152.73 -5,722.57 -3.7%
2025-01-06 98,412.79 2025-01-10 92,506.21 4 bars 166,455.76 -10,303.03 -6.2%
2024-09-19 61,790.86 2024-12-30 93,691.32 102 bars 109,999.9 +56,455.86 +51.3%
2024-08-25 64,189.1 2024-08-29 59,005.38 4 bars 119,903.13 -9,903.23 -8.3%
2024-07-19 64,019.91 2024-08-05 58,131.92 17 bars 132,312.09 -12,408.96 -9.4%
2024-05-18 67,057.51 2024-06-17 66,643.52 30 bars 133,400.55 -1,088.46 -0.8%
2024-02-04 43,032.61 2024-04-16 63,388.28 72 bars 90,743.37 +42,657.18 +47.0%
2023-09-30 26,920.41 2024-01-19 41,306.85 111 bars 59,257.48 +31,485.89 +53.1%
2023-09-23 26,593.43 2023-09-25 26,235.27 2 bars 60,186.71 -929.24 -1.5%
2023-06-22 30,008.89 2023-07-26 29,214.3 34 bars 61,947.49 -1,760.77 -2.8%
2023-03-16 24,297.8 2023-05-10 27,614.47 55 bars 54,616.35 +7,331.14 +13.4%
2023-01-10 17,187.63 2023-03-07 22,398.21 56 bars 41,994.65 +12,621.69 +30.1%
2022-12-15 17,812.91 2022-12-17 16,623.18 2 bars 45,090.32 -3,095.66 -6.9%
2022-10-27 20,782 2022-11-10 15,914.72 14 bars 58,998.39 -13,908.07 -23.6%
2022-07-22 23,163.77 2022-08-21 21,129.5 30 bars 64,808.01 -5,809.62 -9.0%
2022-03-19 41,778.39 2022-04-12 39,510.68 24 bars 68,664.84 -3,856.83 -5.6%
2022-03-03 43,914.94 2022-03-07 38,401.59 4 bars 78,680.31 -10,015.47 -12.7%
2022-02-09 44,065.02 2022-02-21 38,367.7 12 bars 90,544.68 -11,864.36 -13.1%
2021-10-05 49,249.54 2021-11-21 59,677.67 47 bars 74,872.42 +15,672.25 +20.9%
2021-09-16 48,145.46 2021-09-21 42,995.13 5 bars 84,009.14 -9,136.72 -10.9%
2021-07-27 37,259.95 2021-09-14 44,918.25 49 bars 69,825.58 +14,183.56 +20.3%
2021-05-09 58,895.96 2021-05-13 49,512.38 4 bars 83,225.21 -13,399.62 -16.1%
2020-10-10 11,056.17 2021-04-23 51,665.1 195 bars 17,845.58 +65,379.62 +366.4%
2020-07-23 9,522.92 2020-09-04 10,133.22 43 bars 16,804.36 +1,041.23 +6.2%
2020-04-17 7,105.54 2020-06-26 9,244.87 70 bars 12,941.57 +3,862.78 +29.8%
2020-04-09 7,363.94 2020-04-16 6,617.94 7 bars 14,429.23 -1,487.66 -10.3%
2020-01-07 7,762.78 2020-02-28 8,818.84 52 bars 12,726.75 +1,702.48 +13.4%
2019-10-29 9,209.05 2019-11-16 8,467.38 18 bars 13,869.21 -1,142.46 -8.2%
2019-08-06 11,835.91 2019-08-18 10,210.94 12 bars 16,108.55 -2,239.34 -13.9%
2019-02-13 3,633.33 2019-07-20 10,500.53 157 bars 5,584.94 +10,523.61 +188.4%

Prices include slippage; size is what was actually committed to that trade including fees.

Assumptions

Period2018-01-01 → 2026-09-23
Parameters{"fast":12,"slow":26}
Rolling test365 bars × 95 start dates
Input hash585a12b6661490ec

Other strategies

Buy & HoldMartingaleGridDCAMA CrossRSI ReversionMACD CrossBollinger ReversionDonchian BreakoutSupertrendStochastic CrossParabolic SAR