Backtest: Buy EQT at the close when Brent crude closes up more than 1.5% on the day but...
A divergence trade that looks logical on paper went 0 for 63. Buying EQT at the close whenever Brent crude gained more than 1.5% while EQT itself fell sounds like a setup with an energy tailwind. It wasn't. The backtest lost 74.09% of a $100,000 starting stake across 63 closed trades, with not a single winner.
The premise was that crude's strength would eventually pull EQT higher. The rules exited on a close above EQT's five-day moving average or after five trading days, whichever came first. That exit never produced a positive trade.
The full bar-by-bar breakdown, including the comparison to SPY buy-and-hold, is below.
Buy EQT at the close when Brent crude closes up more than 1.5% on the day but EQT closes lower; exit when EQT closes above its 5-day simple moving average or after 5 trading days, whichever comes first.
How this was measured
This is a simulated backtest generated from the plain-English strategy below, executed bar-by-bar on historical market data using the price + news data mode with $100,000 starting capital. Strategy: Buy EQT at the close when Brent crude closes up more than 1.5% on the day but EQT closes lower; exit when EQT closes above its 5-day simple moving average or after 5 trading days, whichever comes first.
The key numbers
The charts
The takeaway
The strategy returned -74.09% on $100,000 starting capital across 63 closed trades with a 0% win rate. Over the same window SPY buy-and-hold returned +76.34%, so the strategy finished trailing the benchmark by 150.43 points. Best single trade -0.03%, worst -10.94%.
The fine print
- Simulated results on historical data — fills, slippage and costs are idealized.
- Past performance does not predict future results.