Does the Awesome Oscillator strategy beat buy & hold on Bitcoin? (BTC · backtested honestly)
The Awesome Oscillator is the gap between a fast (5-bar) and a slow (34-bar) average of each bar's midpoint (the high-low average) - a momentum gauge that is positive when the fast average leads the slow one. This rule goes long while the oscillator is above its zero line and steps aside when it drops below, which is effectively a 5-vs-34 moving-average crossover on the midpoint price - a close cousin of the Moving Average Crossover and MACD already in this library. It is a trend/momentum rule: it lags turns and whipsaws in sideways markets. We deliberately trade only the plain zero-line cross and do not trade the 'saucer' or 'twin-peaks' chart patterns some versions add - those are subjective, non-mechanical shapes that invite curve-fitting rather than an honest, testable rule.
Run it yourself
Change the parameters and the window, then re-run — no account needed.
A live badge that re-runs itself and links back here. Free to embed on any blog, newsletter or forum — it shows the honest result, beat or lagged.
<iframe src="https://stratsemble.com/embed/bitcoin-awesome-oscillator-backtest" width="360" height="252" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="Does the Awesome Oscillator strategy beat buy & hold on Bitcoin?"></iframe>- • The strategy line is Awesome Oscillator on Bitcoin; the dashed line is simply buying and holding BTC. Beating the dashed line is the whole point — many strategies don't.
- • Max drawdown is the worst peak-to-trough fall you'd have sat through. A higher return with a much deeper drawdown is not obviously better.
- • Every fill assumes next-open execution with costs & slippage on — no acting on prices you couldn't have known.
- • A small number of trades means a small sample. Treat a great-looking result on a handful of trades with suspicion.
This is a hypothetical backtest of a well-known mechanism on past data. It is not advice, not a prediction, and not a claim that the strategy works. I hold no funds and place no orders. The value here is the ability to test an idea honestly — see where it would have helped, and where it would have hurt — before you ever risk real money on your own broker.
How this is computed → · who's behind it · where a backtest fits