Accelerator Oscillator: 27 settings, two years
27 Accelerator Oscillator settings backtested on USD/JPY across 2025 and 2024. On hourly bars 22 of 27 were profitable in both years; on 15-minute bars, none were.
The Accelerator Oscillator measures the acceleration of the Awesome Oscillator — not how strong the move is, but whether that strength is building or fading.
I tested three parameters across 27 combinations on USD/JPY through the whole of 2025, on three timeframes, then ran the same 27 on 2024.
On hourly bars, 22 of 27 were profitable in both years. On 15-minute bars, none were.
By timeframe
| Timeframe | Profitable 2025 | 2025 median | Profitable 2024 | 2024 median | Both years | Trades a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 5 / 27 | −258 pips | 2 / 27 | −1,620 pips | 0 / 27 | ~1,470 |
| 1-hour | 26 / 27 | +684 pips | 23 / 27 | +1,521 pips | 22 / 27 | ~360 |
| 4-hour | 24 / 27 | +329 pips | 13 / 27 | −208 pips | 13 / 27 | ~92 |
At about 1,470 trades a year, a 0.3 pip spread costs roughly 880 pips — and nothing here earned past that. Not one 15-minute setting was profitable in both years.
Four-hour reaches 24 of 27 in 2025 and falls to 13 in 2024. Its rank correlation is +0.551, unusually positive for this series.
What the parameters did
| Setting | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Default 5/34/5 | 356 trades, 40.17% win, PF 1.176, +1,087.3 pips (5th of 27) | +1,521.0 pips (14th) |
| Best of 2025, 3/34/3 | 580 trades, 40.86% win, PF 1.241, +1,648.9 pips | −260.5 pips (24th) |
| Best of 2024, 3/55/8 | +533.4 pips (16th) | +2,515.0 pips |
| Worst of 2025, 8/21/3 | −49.4 pips | +2,160.6 pips |
The best setting of 2025 lost money in 2024 and ranked 24th of 27. The worst of 2025 made +2,160.6 pips the year before. Rank correlation −0.314: the order inverts cleanly.
Through all of that the default 5/34/5 sat 5th and 14th — top half and profitable in both years. The same "no reason to move off the default" result that keeps appearing in this series.
Hourly trade counts ran 217 to 604. Shrinking the fast term raises the frequency.
On four-hour bars the default came first
| 4-hour | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Default 5/34/5 | 95 trades, 49.47% win, PF 1.481, +1,120.3 pips (1st) | +905.5 pips (12th) |
| Best of 2024, 5/21/3 | +1,020.9 pips (4th) | +1,811.4 pips |
| Worst of 2025, 8/55/3 | −475.2 pips | −1,237.6 pips |
The default was the single best four-hour setting of 2025, and its win rate — 49.47% — runs well above the hourly 40.17%. On 95 trades a year, that gap is not enough to call a property.
About the win rate
Across the 27 hourly settings in 2025, win rates ran 37.14% to 44.37%, median 41.0%. Win rate and net pips correlate at +0.149 — essentially unrelated.
Holding in the direction of a zero-line break puts it in the same family as OsMA and Supertrend: frequent small losses, occasional large wins, a win rate under 50% by design.
Adding it to a chart
| Platform | How to add it |
|---|---|
| MT4 / MT5 | Built in — Navigator, Bill Williams, Accelerator Oscillator |
| TradingView | In the indicator list as "Accelerator Oscillator" |
| Browser (Formiq) | In the indicator list, with fast, slow and smoothing adjustable |
How this was measured
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Pair | USD/JPY |
| Period | 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 (2024 run identically for comparison) |
| Timeframes | 15-minute / 1-hour / 4-hour |
| Bars tested | 6,226 hourly bars in 2025; 24,903 on 15-minute, 1,610 on 4-hour |
| Buy | AC crosses above zero, filled at that bar's close |
| Sell | It crosses below zero |
| Exit | The opposite zero crossing only — no stop, no target, no time exit |
| Costs | 0.3 pip spread, zero slippage, 0.1 lot |
| Combinations | 3 fast (3, 5, 8) × 3 slow (21, 34, 55) × 3 smoothing (3, 5, 8) = 27 |
| Method | Executed in Formiq's backtester; pips recomputed from each trade's fill prices |
What this test supports
- Hourly bars are where it worked. 22 of 27 profitable in both years, medians of +684 and +1,521 pips
- Not on 15-minute bars. Zero settings survived both years; 1,470 trades a year cannot carry the spread
- Searching for settings did not pay. Rank correlation −0.314; 2025's best was 24th in 2024 and 2025's worst made +2,160.6 pips that year
- The default 5/34/5 is enough. 5th and 14th on hourly, first on four-hour in 2025, positive in both years
- A win rate near 40% is the correct shape, not a fault to fix
The same method applied to OsMA, QQE, Aroon, RVI, Supertrend, Williams %R and MFI.
Limits of this test
- One pair, two years
- 27 combinations is a coarser grid than the 54 to 240 used for other indicators in this series
- AC inherits whatever the Awesome Oscillator implementation does. These figures come from Formiq's
- Entries and exits both fill at bar closes
- The spread is modelled as a flat 0.3 pips; the 15-minute result depends heavily on that
- Four-hour settings trade 61 to 161 times a year — wide numbers at that count
- Volatility varies by hour of the day
Questions people ask
- What are the best Accelerator Oscillator settings?
- On hourly bars the best of 2025 was 3/34/3 (580 trades, +1,648.9 pips) — which lost 260.5 pips in 2024, ranking 24th of 27. The 2024 leader, 3/55/8, came 16th in 2025. The default 5/34/5 placed 5th and 14th, positive in both years, and was the single best setting on four-hour bars in 2025.
- What does the Accelerator Oscillator measure?
- The acceleration of the Awesome Oscillator. Where AO is the gap between a short and a long average of the bar midpoint, AC subtracts a further moving average from AO. It tracks how fast momentum is changing rather than momentum itself.
- Which timeframe suits the Accelerator Oscillator?
- Hourly and four-hour in this test: 22 of 27 settings profitable in both years on hourly, 13 of 27 on four-hour, and none of 27 on 15-minute. The 15-minute version trades about 1,470 times a year, which the spread outweighs.
- What win rate does it produce?
- Across the 27 hourly settings in 2025, 37.14% to 44.37% with a median of 41.0%. Holding through a zero-line crossing is trend following, so the win rate sits below 50% and the average win has to exceed the average loss.
- Is it built into MetaTrader?
- Yes. Both MT4 and MT5 ship it under Bill Williams as Accelerator Oscillator. TradingView lists it as "Accelerator Oscillator". Formiq's charts include it with all three parameters adjustable.
Formiq is a free browser-based FX terminal with replay practice and no-code backtesting. Open the chart or see what the free plan includes.