False Break strategy — on every asset
The observable half of a liquidity sweep: price trades to a new low beyond the last N closed bars' support and then a later bar closes back above that broken level, treating the failed push lower as a possible turn. It buys that reclaim and goes flat when price later closes below the lowest low of a recent window (the structure breaking down). It is pure price geometry — a failed breakdown read from closed bars — and makes no claim about resting orders or who was 'swept'.
Read the honest study: Does the liquidity sweep work? We backtested its one observable half across every famous asset
When price dips while its long trend holds — By construction it enters on a reclaim of a just-broken support and then holds until price closes below a recent low, so one reclaim is carried through an extended move while another exits on the next structural break.
When that long trend breaks down — A reclaimed level is a description of past price, not a prediction: it can break straight back down as readily as it holds, and on a sustained decline price keeps making fresh lows that never reclaim in time, so it simply stays out. Mechanically buying every reclaim churns many trades and, once costs are counted, this rule usually lags simply holding.
Whether that behaviour produced excess return on your asset over your window is exactly what your backtest measures — we publish no profit claims.
How it works — step by step
- • Entry — Go long when, after price makes a new N-bar low, a later bar within a set window closes back above the broken support level.
- • Exit — Go flat when price closes below the lowest low of the last M bars — the structure broke down.
- • Fills, scoring & data — Every backtest fills at the next real open and scores on the real price against a real buy-and-hold, never a smoothed or derived series; the sweep and exit ranges exclude the current bar, so there is no look-ahead, and the entry fills at the next real open, not at the reclaim level.
Most of these did not beat buy & hold — but a real few did, and finding out which is the whole point. This one strategy was tested on 47 different assets. With that many attempts, some will beat buy & hold by chance alone — which is why these are listed neutrally, not ranked by which ones came out ahead. To see whether any single result survives scrutiny, run the out-of-sample, walk-forward and multiple-testing checks on its backtest.
Of the 47 with enough data to judge, 12 beat buy & hold. Results are simulated backtests over the last ~5 years (less for younger assets), shown whole — losses included — not live or future performance. These are famous names that still trade today. Names that delisted, went bankrupt or were wound down aren't in the set (survivorship bias) — and that history isn't available from the free public data this tool runs on — so this rate isn't a representative base rate for every stock or ETF that has ever traded.
Listed in a neutral catalog order — not ranked by performance. Combinations we can't judge yet — too little data — are grouped separately below.
Here, “beat” means only a higher total return than buy & hold over this one past window — not risk-adjusted, not luck-checked. The out-of-sample, walk-forward and luck checks live on each individual backtest.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. This is an educational, analytical tool — not investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. You make all decisions and execute on your own broker.
HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER- OR OVER-COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN.
On the 47 assets with enough data to judge, the same rule swung from +343 pts vs buy & hold on XRP to -863 pts on Nvidia. The typical (median) result was -39.9 pts — and even across these runs, the deepest drawdown you'd have sat through was -89% on Polkadot.
That range is the whole point: one rule is not universally good or bad — it depends entirely on the asset, and with 47 tried, some beat by chance. Shown to reveal the variation, not to pick one to trade.
False Break on stocks
False Break on etfs
False Break on commodities
False Break on crypto
Backtesting is one stage of preparing to trade, not the finish line. The full discipline runs five: Understand, Test, Stress-test, Forward-test, then Decide — eyes open. Most ideas should wash out in the first three, and every stage is a place to stop, for free — but the rare idea that survives all five is the one worth taking into the market with your eyes open, and finding it before you risk a cent is the whole point.