The best indicator for Heating Oil (HO)
We backtested 20 indicators across daily, weekly and hourly charts on real Heating Oil (HO) history. Here's what actually worked — risk-adjusted, out-of-sample, with costs.
SMA 50/200 Cross
On the daily chart, this is the strongest risk-adjusted edge we found for Heating Oil (HO) over ~25.7 years — beating buy-and-hold by 2.0% CAGR.
The winner on each chart
Every indicator, ranked
Ranked by Sharpe (risk-adjusted return). Hypothetical, fees included.
| # | Indicator | TF | CAGR | Sharpe | Max DD | Win | Trades | vs B&H |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SMA 50/200 Cross ✓ | Daily | 7.2% | 0.39 | -62.3% | 52.6% | 19 | 2.0% |
| 2 | EMA 50/200 Cross ✓ | Daily | 4.4% | 0.29 | -70.4% | 31.8% | 22 | -0.8% |
| 3 | EMA 20/50 Cross ✓ | Weekly | 3.3% | 0.26 | -64.1% | 43.8% | 16 | -1.8% |
| 4 | CCI ✓ | Weekly | 3.2% | 0.25 | -72.2% | 75.0% | 28 | -2.0% |
| 5 | Donchian Midline ✓ | Daily | 2.7% | 0.23 | -51.7% | 41.6% | 363 | -2.5% |
| 6 | EMA 20/50 Cross ✓ | Daily | 2.3% | 0.22 | -67.0% | 42.0% | 69 | -2.9% |
| 7 | MACD ✓ | Weekly | 2.5% | 0.22 | -65.4% | 43.6% | 55 | -2.7% |
| 8 | Bollinger Mean-Reversion ✓ | Daily | 2.1% | 0.2 | -71.3% | 61.5% | 104 | -3.1% |
| 9 | Williams %R ✓ | Weekly | 1.8% | 0.2 | -69.9% | 76.3% | 38 | -3.4% |
| 10 | EMA-10 Trend ✓ | Weekly | 1.9% | 0.2 | -62.4% | 34.9% | 129 | -3.3% |
| 11 | Donchian Breakout ✓ | Weekly | 1.3% | 0.17 | -59.8% | 40.0% | 25 | -3.9% |
| 12 | Donchian Midline ✓ | Weekly | 1.2% | 0.17 | -72.6% | 37.8% | 90 | -4.0% |
| 13 | WaveTrend (8/6/4) | Daily | 0.7% | 0.16 | -81.0% | 71.4% | 91 | -4.5% |
| 14 | Rate of Change ✓ | Weekly | 0.7% | 0.16 | -60.3% | 43.0% | 93 | -4.4% |
✓ = held up out-of-sample. Hypothetical, costs included. See methodology.
For Heating Oil (HO), SMA 50/200 Cross on the daily timeframe gave the best balance of return and risk in our test. It beat buy-and-hold — but remember: this is a hypothetical backtest of a standard rule, not a recommendation. Markets change. See the methodology and disclaimer.
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