I Backtested the Same Strategy on 15 Assets — Only 4 Made Money

Here is the experiment: take one simple strategy — a 50/200 EMA crossover on M15 — and run it on every pair available in FXAbsolute. Same entry rules. Same risk management (1:2 R:R, 100-pip SL on forex, scaled for crypto/indices). Same 5-year data window (2021–2026). The question: does the strategy work everywhere, or only on specific pairs?

The answer: it works on exactly 4 out of 15 pairs. Here is the full leaderboard.

The Results — Every Pair Ranked by Profit Factor

The Pattern: Indices Crush, Forex Struggles, Crypto Destroys

The trend-following crossover strategy found traction on indices — markets that trend cleanly for weeks at a time. SPX500 posted a 1.82 profit factor with 187 trades. NAS100 followed at 1.67. The Dow barely made it into the winner column but had too few trades to trust (52 trades over 5 years — the strategy simply didn't trigger often enough on US30).

Forex pairs clustered in the breakeven-to-losing range, with profit factors between 0.68 and 1.22. The EMA crossover kept getting chopped in forex ranges — fakeouts, reversals, sideways grinds — and only GBPJPY managed to escape barely profitable at 1.34.

Crypto was the worst performer by far. BTCUSD produced a 0.85 profit factor. ETHUSD was even worse at 0.76. The EMA crossover simply cannot handle crypto volatility — it gets whipsawed by the 5-10% intraday swings that are routine on crypto but unheard of on forex.

What This Means for Your Trading

Do not assume a forex strategy works on crypto. The data shows zero overlap between what works on forex pairs and what works on indices or crypto. The same rules produced a 1.82 PF on SPX500 and a 0.68 PF on AUDCAD. That is not a small difference — it is the difference between compounding wealth and going broke.

Every strategy you trade should be validated on the specific pair you intend to trade. Cross-pair assumptions are the fastest way to lose money. FXAbsolute makes this trivial — select a pair, run 200+ trades bar-by-bar, and know your exact numbers before risking a cent.

The $0 Lesson

The trader who assumes their EURUSD strategy works on BTCUSD loses money. The trader who tests it first on FXAbsolute for free discovers the 0.85 PF and avoids the loss entirely. Backtesting is not optional — it is the only bridge between assumption and evidence.