The best indicator for United Airlines Holdings (UAL)
We backtested 20 indicators across daily, weekly and hourly charts on real United Airlines Holdings (UAL) history. Here's what actually worked — risk-adjusted, out-of-sample, with costs.
Rate of Change
On the daily chart, this is the strongest risk-adjusted edge we found for United Airlines Holdings (UAL) over ~20.3 years — beating buy-and-hold by 3.6% 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 | Rate of Change ✓ | Daily | 9.7% | 0.42 | -69.2% | 41.4% | 314 | 3.6% |
| 2 | EMA-10 Trend ✓ | Daily | 9.8% | 0.42 | -64.5% | 41.1% | 460 | 3.7% |
| 3 | Heikin-Ashi Trend ✓ | Daily | 7.2% | 0.37 | -70.8% | 46.5% | 973 | 1.1% |
| 4 | Holy Grail Confluence ✓ | Daily | 6.8% | 0.36 | -90.3% | 74.4% | 39 | 0.7% |
| 5 | MACD ✓ | Weekly | 7.2% | 0.36 | -72.2% | 37.0% | 46 | 1.2% |
| 6 | ADX / DMI ✓ | Daily | 6.4% | 0.35 | -49.9% | 42.6% | 129 | 0.3% |
| 7 | CCI ✓ | Weekly | 6.4% | 0.35 | -91.2% | 70.8% | 24 | 0.4% |
| 8 | Donchian Breakout ✓ | Daily | 5.5% | 0.33 | -70.0% | 36.5% | 85 | -0.6% |
| 9 | Stochastic ✓ | Weekly | 5.0% | 0.33 | -91.2% | 82.6% | 23 | -1.0% |
| 10 | Donchian Breakout | Weekly | 5.4% | 0.32 | -62.9% | 52.9% | 17 | -0.7% |
| 11 | Williams %R ✓ | Weekly | 4.7% | 0.32 | -91.2% | 78.6% | 28 | -1.3% |
| 12 | MACD ✓ | Daily | 3.4% | 0.3 | -93.1% | 40.4% | 193 | -2.7% |
| 13 | Bollinger Mean-Reversion ✓ | Weekly | 3.8% | 0.3 | -84.3% | 82.4% | 17 | -2.2% |
| 14 | RSI Trend (>50) ✓ | Daily | 3.3% | 0.28 | -75.7% | 35.4% | 285 | -2.8% |
✓ = held up out-of-sample. Hypothetical, costs included. See methodology.
For United Airlines Holdings (UAL), Rate of Change 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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