TheFinSense’s Trading Edge series debunks retail trading-rule lore with cost-adjusted expected value math. Each article tests a popular technical signal — moving average crossovers, golden cross, candlestick patterns, support and resistance, trendline survivorship — against academic literature (Brock-Lakonishok-LeBaron 1992, Bajgrowicz-Scaillet 2012, Sermpinis 2019, Barber-Odean 2000) and three-regime cost models. Result: most “edges” lose to passive buy-and-hold once round-trip costs, turnover frequency, and tax friction compound over 25-35 years. Math beats intuition. Every time.
TradingView’s default RSI 14 and MACD 12/26/9 are 1970s day-trading numbers. Obey their alerts as a long-term investor and the quiet bill runs about $4,757 a decade.
TradingView Settings for Investors Cost You $4,757 Read More »
We ran 3,000 simulations to price a day-late portfolio tracker. Median 30-year cost: about zero. It adds swing, not a steady drain.
Portfolio Tracker Sync Delay: The 30-Year Costs $0 Read More »
The ‘volume precedes price 73 percent of the time’ claim has no peer-reviewed academic source. Four major academic papers from 1987 through 2009 contain zero quantification of the specific hit-rate. Lee and Swaminathan’s data shows the high-volume winners retail traders chase reverse fastest over the following years. Acting on the unverified signal costs $1,241,031 over
Volume Precedes Price: The Myth 3 Journals Demolish Read More »
Bollinger Band squeeze win rate sits at 50 percent in academic tests of 7,846 trading rules. The compound cost on a $50,000 account over 15 years reaches $26,328.
Bollinger Band Squeeze: The 50/50 Direction Trap Read More »
A 2012 study tested 7,846 technical trading rules on the Dow Jones and found zero that beat buying and holding. A $300K portfolio adding $1K monthly forfeits $359,104 over 20 years to MACD’s 1979 default.
Does MACD Work? A 2012 Study Tested 7,846 Rules Read More »
Why trust this analysis Danny Hwang; aggregated 5-market RSI 70/30 trading-rule profitability Tables from Chong-Ng-Liew JRFM 2014. Hit rates verified against published Brock-Lakonishok-LeBaron t-statistics; 4-year crypto cross-asset confirmation; methodology open. Sources verified May 2026; corrections logged within 24 hours. 📅 Originally Published: May 12, 2026 Last Updated: May 13, 2026 Editorial transparency: This article was
RSI Overbought Signal: Right Only 47% of the Time Read More »
A 78 percent golden cross win rate is a frequency claim, not a wealth claim. QuantifiedStrategies’ 33-signal S&P 500 backtest from 1960 through 2026 logs the 78 percent figure alongside a 40 basis point annualized drag.
Golden Cross Win Rate: 78% Wins Drain $337K in 30 Years Read More »
Barber and Odean’s Q4 turnover quintile costs 5.568 percent yearly across 66,465 households. That drag attaches to trade frequency, not signal smoothness.
SMA vs EMA Crossover: Both Drain $602K via Turnover Read More »
Retail trendline trading looks free but compounds 1% drag into a $598,099 wealth gap on $200K over 35 years. The chart never shows what it deleted.
Trendline Survivorship Bias Drains $598K in 35y Read More »
Round-number support and resistance attract 3.73x more trades than uniform distribution would predict at integer prices like $100. Bhattacharya, Holden and Jacobsen estimated -$813 million in annual aggregate wealth transfer.
Support and Resistance: The 3.73x Round-Number Trap Read More »
