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New 20-Day High Continuationthe oldest systematic trade there is

Evidence: ModerateBeginnerSwing · Breakout

Buy a new twenty-day high. Sell a new twenty-day low. There is no filter, no oscillator and no opinion, and versions of this have been traded since the 1960s.

It is in the swing book rather than the breakout book because of how it is held: the entry is a breakout, but the trade is a multi-week position and the exit is what makes or breaks it. A twenty-day high entry with a two-day exit is not this strategy.

Everything on this page is measured in daily bars. A rule that says 'twenty bars' means twenty trading days — about a month — and a stop that survives that has to be wide enough to sit through a normal week.

Category
Swing · Breakout
Timeframe
D1 only · held for weeks
Suitable pairs
Trending majors · XAUUSD · index CFDs · works better across many instruments than one
Session
Daily close
Indicators / tools
Donchian(20) — the highest high and lowest low of the previous 20 days · ATR(20)

Valid setup

SW-04 · NEW 20-DAY HIGH CONTINUATION — VALID SETUP XAUUSD · D1 · the close clears the highest high of the previous twenty days — the exit channel is half as long LONG 4288.04 4320.89 4353.73 4386.58 4419.42 4452.27 4485.11 no target — the exit channel decides 1R = 2 × ATR(20) Donchian(20) — the entry channel Donchian(10) low — the exit ENTRY = daily close above the 20-day high STOP = 2 × ATR(20) 1 2 3 4396.00 4377.30 ① The channel tracks the previous 20 days, not today ② No filter, no confirmation, no opinion ③ Every signal is taken — that is the method ④ Close above the channel — in at that close ⑤ Stop 2 × ATR(20) back, position sized from it ⑥ Out on a close below the 10-day low

Exact rules

Entry

  • Long when the daily close is above the highest high of the previous twenty days. Short at the mirror.
  • The channel excludes today. If today's own high counted, price would touch the channel on every new high and the signal would mean nothing.
  • No trend filter, no confirmation, no waiting for a retest. Adding any of those makes it a different strategy — a reasonable one, but not this one.
  • Take every signal. The returns of this method live in a small number of very large trades and skipping signals by judgement is how people miss them.

Stop loss

  • 2 × ATR(20) below the entry.
  • Wide by design. The position size has to be set from this distance, not the other way round.
  • Risk 0.5% per instrument, and cap the total across correlated instruments — a basket of dollar pairs is one trade wearing five hats.

Take profit / exit

  • No target. Exit on a close below the ten-day low — a Donchian(10) exit, half the length of the entry channel.
  • That asymmetry is deliberate: slow to enter, quicker to leave.
  • Expect a hit rate near or below 40%. This strategy is unpleasant to run and that is priced into the returns of the people who do run it.

Build New 20-Day High Continuation

Reading this page is free and always will be. Taking it is what costs — the complete MQL5 for the rules above, yours to keep, permanently. Five of them cost $10 and they never expire.

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More from Swing

Daily Trend Pullbackbuy the dip inside a trend that already existsThree-Day Reversalthree closes the same way, then the turnDaily Breakout Retestlet the break go, buy the return

Trading carries risk and most retail accounts lose money. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to trade. The chart is an illustration of the rules on constructed candles — it is not a record of a trade and not a backtest.