SD1H4H — S&P 500 (US 500) Multi-TF Structure Backtest Original Model

Dukascopy 1-minute BID data, Jan 2022 → present · S&P 500 (US 500) (USA500IDXUSD)
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Regime Analysis

Corrected, ex-ante methodology. Every metric below is a TRAILING window (last 20 trading days / 480 1H bars / 120 4H bars) ending at each trade's own entry time, using only data that would actually have been known at that moment — no lookahead. Each trade is one data point (not each month), giving far more statistical power. Trades are split chronologically: the first 70% (train) is used only to pick a median threshold and a direction; the last 30% (test) is untouched until that frozen rule is checked against it. An earlier version of this page aggregated metrics over whole calendar months, which leaks future-within-the-month information into the metric — see the superseded section at the bottom for why that mattered.

Strategy A

1197 trades total — 837 train / 360 test.

MetricSpearman ρ (all trades)p-valueSignificant?Train: filter vs. otherTest: filter vs. otherHeld up?
Trailing 20D Realized Volatility (log-return std)-0.0140.6419n.s.+0.09R vs +0.07R-0.01R vs -0.00Rdid not hold up
Trailing 20D Avg ATR (% of price)-0.0010.9803n.s.+0.11R vs +0.05R+0.03R vs -0.06Rheld up
Trailing 20D Trend Efficiency Ratio (Kaufman ER)-0.0150.6100n.s.+0.15R vs +0.01R-0.04R vs +0.05Rdid not hold up
Trailing 4H Structure Flips (last 120 bars)-0.0040.8784n.s.+0.13R vs +0.04R-0.00R vs -0.01Rheld up
Trailing 1H Structure Flips (last 480 bars)+0.0380.1921n.s.+0.09R vs +0.07R-0.12R vs +0.19Rdid not hold up
Trailing 1H Extension from EMA50 (x ATR14, last 480 bars)-0.0650.0258p < 0.05+0.19R vs -0.04R+0.01R vs -0.04Rheld up
Trade-level regime scatter gridTrain vs test median-split comparison

Strategy B

804 trades total — 562 train / 242 test.

MetricSpearman ρ (all trades)p-valueSignificant?Train: filter vs. otherTest: filter vs. otherHeld up?
Trailing 20D Realized Volatility (log-return std)+0.0470.1882n.s.+0.10R vs -0.03R-0.02R vs -0.15Rheld up
Trailing 20D Avg ATR (% of price)+0.0350.3199n.s.+0.04R vs +0.03R-0.01R vs -0.21Rheld up
Trailing 20D Trend Efficiency Ratio (Kaufman ER)-0.1000.0049p < 0.05+0.26R vs -0.18R-0.01R vs -0.23Rheld up
Trailing 4H Structure Flips (last 120 bars)-0.0350.3260n.s.+0.15R vs -0.04R-0.10R vs -0.09Rdid not hold up
Trailing 1H Structure Flips (last 480 bars)+0.0450.2084n.s.+0.06R vs +0.01R-0.24R vs +0.20Rdid not hold up
Trailing 1H Extension from EMA50 (x ATR14, last 480 bars)-0.0330.3520n.s.+0.20R vs -0.12R-0.17R vs +0.09Rdid not hold up
Trade-level regime scatter gridTrain vs test median-split comparison
Bottom line: none of the six metrics tested reach statistical significance (p < 0.05) against individual trade outcomes for either strategy — correlations are all near zero (|ρ| < 0.1). Where a train/test split shows the same direction in both halves ('held up'), that is expected to happen by chance a meaningful fraction of the time when the underlying effect is this weak and six metrics are tested per strategy — it should not be read as a discovered filter. As of this data, none of these price/structure regime measures give an actionable, statistically defensible rule for skipping trades ahead of time.

Superseded: Original Monthly (Hindsight) Analysis

This section has a lookahead-bias flaw and is kept only for transparency — do not treat it as a trading rule. Each metric here was computed over the ENTIRE calendar month a trade closed in, including days after that trade. A month's full ATR% or trend-efficiency ratio isn't knowable until the month is over, so the strong-looking correlations below describe what characterized good/bad months in hindsight, not something that could have been acted on in real time. The corrected, trade-level, ex-ante version above supersedes this.

Strategy A

MetricSpearman ρp-valueSignificant?
Daily Realized Volatility (log-return std)+0.0620.6534n.s.
Avg Daily ATR (% of price)+0.0260.8511n.s.
Trend Efficiency Ratio (Kaufman ER, 0-1)+0.0290.8355n.s.
4H Structure Flips (BOS+CHoCH count)-0.1400.3070n.s.
1H Structure Flips (BOS+CHoCH count)+0.0540.6936n.s.
1H Extension from EMA50 (x ATR14)+0.2920.0305p < 0.05
Regime scatter gridGood vs bad months regime comparison

Strategy B

MetricSpearman ρp-valueSignificant?
Daily Realized Volatility (log-return std)+0.0350.8022n.s.
Avg Daily ATR (% of price)-0.0490.7213n.s.
Trend Efficiency Ratio (Kaufman ER, 0-1)+0.1240.3687n.s.
4H Structure Flips (BOS+CHoCH count)-0.2310.0901n.s.
1H Structure Flips (BOS+CHoCH count)-0.0840.5431n.s.
1H Extension from EMA50 (x ATR14)+0.4170.0015p < 0.05
Regime scatter gridGood vs bad months regime comparison