RSI Divergence

Status: KILLED (2026-08-14 live re-measure). At the preset defaults this configuration does not merely underperform — it destroys the account (-100%, ruin under fixed nominal sizing). This page exists because the simulator ships the preset and you can reproduce the result yourself; it is here to show why it loses, not to suggest trading it.

Overview

RSI Divergence hunts reversals: price pushes to a new extreme while RSI refuses to confirm it. The engine’s implementation is deliberately simple — it compares the current bar against the extremes of a rolling window of the previous 10 bars, not against matched swing pivots. That makes it fire often, and as the numbers below show, firing often at “reversal” points inside a trending market is how accounts die.

How It Works

1. RSI — RSI(14) with Wilder’s smoothing
2. LONG (bullish divergence) — RSI below 30 (oversold) and the close is below the lowest close of the previous 10 bars and RSI is above the lowest RSI of that window
3. SHORT (bearish divergence) — RSI above 70 (overbought) and the close is above the highest close of the previous 10 bars and RSI is below the highest RSI of that window
4. Entry — next bar’s open after the signal candle
5. Exit — TP 5% / SL 7% (preset defaults)

Results (live engine re-measure, 2026-08-14)

Scope: top-10 coins, 1H candles, leverage 5x, fee 0.05% per side, window 2023-12-10 → 2026-08-14, fixed nominal sizing.

Metric	Value
Profit factor	0.67
Total return	-100.0% (account ruin)
Win rate	48.02%
Max drawdown	100.0% (account equity)
Sharpe	-2.64
Trades	1,491

Why It Loses

• Window extremes are not pivots. “Close below the 10-bar low while RSI holds higher” is true on bar after bar of a steady decline — the entry condition is knife-catching in a sustained trend, and the mirrored short side does the same against sustained rallies.
• The exit asymmetry runs against you. SL 7% is wider than TP 5%, so the average loss outweighs the average win; a 48.02% win rate cannot carry that, and PF 0.67 is the result.
• Leverage finishes the job. At 5x with 0.05% fee per side, a profit factor below 1 compounds losses across 1,491 trades until equity reaches 0 — that is what -100% (ruin) means here.

Caveats

• -100% is this repo’s ruin notation: under fixed nominal sizing the account equity reached 0 inside the window. It is not “down but recoverable” — the account is dead.
• The verdict covers the combined both-direction book at the preset defaults on the stated scope. No claim is made about other timeframes, coin sets, or parameter values.
• Killed status: the preset stays runnable in the simulator so the result is reproducible, but nothing on this page is a recommendation to trade it.