Key takeaways
- The golden cross loses to a random long on daily charts. -0.6 points, dead last of every signal we measured.
- It is also the only 4-hour combination to clear breakeven. At 50.2%, though its edge over random there is not significant.
- The sample is thin by construction. A 50/200 crossover is a rare event - under eight hundred daily occurrences across 93 instruments in sixteen years.
- Faster crosses are not better. The EMA 9/21 and EMA200 crosses land between zero and one and a half points.
What it does
A moving average is the mean price over a lookback window, redrawn each bar. An exponential moving average weights recent bars more heavily so it turns faster than a simple average of the same length. Crossovers are read as trend changes: the faster average rising through the slower one is taken as a shift to an uptrend.
Four crossover families are measured here: the EMA 50/200 golden and death cross, the much faster EMA 9/21 crosses, and price itself crossing the EMA200 in either direction. Together they span the range from the rarest, slowest signal in common use to some of the most frequent.
How this was measured
Every figure below comes from our own tick-derived archive, not from a vendor summary. The method is identical to the one behind our indicator signal study, so the numbers here are directly comparable to every other signal we publish.
- Data. Dukascopy bid-side OHLC for 93 instruments — major and cross FX pairs, gold, silver, stock indices and crypto — from 2010 to August 2026.
- The trade. Enter at the open of the next bar. Stop at 1.5 × ATR(14), targets at 1:1 and 1:2, walking forward up to 40 bars.
- Ties go against you. A bar holding both stop and target is scored a loss every time.
- Real costs. Per-instrument median spreads from our own bid/ask measurement.
- The control. For every signal, a trade with the same direction and the same stop distance at a random bar — five draws each. The gap between the two columns is all the signal is worth.
The result
Breakeven is a 50% win rate at a 1:1 target and 33.3% at 1:2. "Matched random" is a trade in the same direction with the same stop distance, opened at a random bar.
| Signal | Target | Trades | Win rate | Matched random | Edge | Significance | Beats breakeven? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Death cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:1 | 761 | 48.0% | 46.1% | +1.9 pts | not significant | No |
| Golden cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:1 | 3,918 | 50.2% | 48.9% | +1.3 pts | not significant | Yes |
| EMA 9/21 bear cross | 1:1 | 5,685 | 48.2% | 47.0% | +1.2 pts | not significant | No |
| Price crosses below EMA200 | 1:1 | 5,114 | 48.6% | 47.5% | +1.1 pts | not significant | No |
| EMA 9/21 bear cross | 1:1 | 28,570 | 48.5% | 48.0% | +0.6 pts | not significant | No |
| Death cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:1 | 3,903 | 49.3% | 48.8% | +0.5 pts | not significant | No |
| EMA 9/21 bull cross | 1:1 | 5,711 | 52.3% | 51.9% | +0.4 pts | not significant | Yes |
| Price crosses above EMA200 | 1:1 | 5,125 | 52.1% | 51.8% | +0.3 pts | not significant | Yes |
| Price crosses below EMA200 | 1:1 | 25,668 | 48.7% | 48.4% | +0.2 pts | not significant | No |
| EMA 9/21 bull cross | 1:1 | 28,595 | 49.3% | 49.4% | +0.0 pts | not significant | No |
| Price crosses above EMA200 | 1:1 | 25,688 | 49.0% | 49.0% | -0.1 pts | not significant | No |
| Golden cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:1 | 780 | 52.4% | 53.0% | -0.6 pts | not significant | Yes |
| Golden cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:2 | 745 | 34.6% | 32.8% | +1.9 pts | not significant | Yes |
| EMA 9/21 bull cross | 1:2 | 27,461 | 33.3% | 31.9% | +1.4 pts | *** | No |
| Death cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:2 | 3,763 | 32.4% | 31.3% | +1.1 pts | not significant | No |
| EMA 9/21 bear cross | 1:2 | 5,427 | 30.6% | 29.8% | +0.8 pts | not significant | No |
| Death cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:2 | 735 | 29.4% | 28.6% | +0.8 pts | not significant | No |
| EMA 9/21 bear cross | 1:2 | 27,602 | 31.6% | 30.8% | +0.8 pts | * | No |
| Price crosses above EMA200 | 1:2 | 24,583 | 32.7% | 31.9% | +0.7 pts | * | No |
| Price crosses below EMA200 | 1:2 | 24,731 | 31.2% | 30.6% | +0.6 pts | not significant | No |
| Golden cross (EMA 50/200) | 1:2 | 3,767 | 32.3% | 31.7% | +0.6 pts | not significant | No |
| Price crosses below EMA200 | 1:2 | 4,860 | 29.8% | 29.3% | +0.5 pts | not significant | No |
| Price crosses above EMA200 | 1:2 | 4,895 | 34.6% | 34.1% | +0.5 pts | not significant | Yes |
| EMA 9/21 bull cross | 1:2 | 5,448 | 35.4% | 35.0% | +0.5 pts | not significant | Yes |
The golden cross result is the one people argue about, so it is worth being precise. Its daily win rate at a 1:1 target is above 50%, which sounds like vindication. But a random long with the same stop distance, over the same bars, won more often. The indicator did not add anything; the rising market did. That is the entire case for showing a control column, and the golden cross is the clearest illustration of it in the study.
Then the 4-hour rows complicate the story in its favour: there it is the single signal-and-target combination out of twenty-eight that finishes above breakeven after spreads. Its edge over random there is not statistically significant, so this is a distinction worth noting rather than trading. Both facts are true, and quoting only one of them is how this signal keeps its reputation.
How to use it
- Use averages for context, not entries. Where price sits relative to a long average describes the regime. The crossing itself did not pay on this data.
- Distrust the thin sample. Under eight hundred daily golden crosses across 93 instruments and sixteen years is not many. Any confident win rate quoted for it should come with that number attached.
- If you use the golden cross, use it on 4-hour bars. That is the only place it cleared breakeven, with the caveat that its edge over random there is not significant.
- Do not expect speed to help. The much more frequent EMA 9/21 crosses do not produce a larger edge, they just produce more trades.
What does not work
- The golden cross on daily charts. Negative edge against a matched random long. It is the most famous signal in retail trading and the worst performer in this study.
- Quoting a moving-average win rate without a control. Every long-side average looks good in a period where indices, gold and crypto rose 5.2 points' worth for free.
- Trading crosses faster to get more signal. More trades at the same thin edge is worse after costs, not better.
Limitations
- Default parameters only. Tuning them on this same data would be curve-fitting.
- One stop rule (1.5 × ATR) and two fixed targets. Trailing stops, time exits and scaling are untested.
- Signals are taken in isolation, with no trend filter or confluence — which is how the isolated value of each is measured, but not how most people trade them.
- Bid data with modelled ask. Spread is a measured median, not a replayed tick-level ask feed.
- Spread only — no commission or swap. Both would push results further down.
- A statistically significant edge of one point is still only one point. Large samples make small effects certain; they do not make them large.
Cite or republish this data
Free to quote, screenshot, or republish — in an article, a video, a newsletter, or a course — as long as you credit FxBacktest with a link back to this page.
Frequently asked
Does the golden cross work?
Not against the right benchmark. On daily charts across 93 instruments the EMA 50/200 golden cross won more than half its 1:1 trades, but a matched random long with the same stop distance won more often still - an edge of -0.6 points, last of every signal we measured. Its one distinction is on 4-hour bars, where it is the only one of twenty-eight signal-and-target combinations to clear breakeven after spreads, though its edge over random there is not statistically significant.
Why does the golden cross have such a small sample?
Because a 50-period average crossing a 200-period average is by construction a rare event. Across 93 instruments and sixteen years of daily bars it occurred under eight hundred times. Any win rate quoted for the golden cross without that sample size attached is hiding how little evidence sits behind it.
Are faster moving average crosses better?
No. The EMA 9/21 crosses produce many times more signals than the 50/200 cross and land between zero and one and a half points of edge over their controls. More frequent trading at the same thin edge is worse after costs, not better.
Is EMA better than SMA?
We tested exponential averages throughout, so this data cannot settle it. An EMA weights recent bars more heavily and therefore turns sooner, which matters more for fast crossovers than slow ones. Given that none of the crossover families produced an edge above one and a half points on daily charts, the choice between EMA and SMA is unlikely to be the deciding factor.
How were these moving average numbers produced?
Enter at the open of the bar after the cross, stop 1.5 x ATR(14) away, targets at 1:1 and 1:2, walking forward up to 40 bars. Bars containing both stop and target are scored as losses. Real per-instrument median spreads are applied. Every signal is compared against five random-entry draws in the same direction with the same stop distance. Data is Dukascopy bid OHLC for 93 instruments, 2010 to August 2026.