84 Aroon settings tested on USD/JPY: the default won
Every Aroon setting backtested on USD/JPY across 2025 and 2024: crossover versus level, a ranking that inverted, and a profit factor of 4.0 that meant nothing.
Aroon looks at one thing: how many bars ago the recent high and the recent low were set. Not how far price moved, not how fast. Only when.
Does that plainness work? I swept 84 configurations — period, trigger, and threshold — across the whole of 2025 on USD/JPY, on three timeframes, then ran all of it again on 2024.
The short version: Aroon on its own was weak over these two years. On hourly bars in 2025, 45 of 84 configurations finished positive with a median of +30 pips. That is a coin flip.
And one result was worse than weak. On four-hour bars, the configuration that earned most in 2024 lost 1,602.7 pips in 2025. And that was not one setting's bad luck: across all 84, the rank correlation between the two years is −0.71. The ranking did not fade; it turned over.
What Aroon measures
Two lines:
- Aroon Up — how long ago the highest high of the last N bars occurred. A new high today reads 100; a high set N bars ago reads 0
- Aroon Down — the same for the lowest low
In an uptrend, highs keep being made, so Up pins near 100 and Down falls away. Both lines measure elapsed time and nothing else — no range, no volatility.
There are two ways to read them, and they are not the same trade:
| Trigger | Buy when | Nature |
|---|---|---|
| Crossover | Up crosses above Down | An event, on one bar |
| Level | Up at or above a threshold while Down is below it | A state, true for as long as it lasts |
So the trigger is swept here alongside the numbers.
| Knob | What raising it does |
|---|---|
| Period | Widens the window the high and low are found in. Fewer reversals, fewer signals |
| Trigger | Crossover or level — a choice, not a number |
| Threshold | The level mode's bar. Higher is stricter, so fewer signals |
Adding Aroon to a chart
| Platform | How to add it |
|---|---|
| MT4 | Not included. Download an .ex4 or .mq4 into MQL4/Indicators, restart |
| MT5 | Included — Navigator, under Oscillators |
| TradingView | In the indicator list as "Aroon" |
| Browser (Formiq) | In the indicator list; the period is adjustable in its settings |
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 (crossover) | Up crosses above Down, filled at that bar's close |
| Buy (level) | Up at or above the threshold while Down is below it |
| Sell | The mirror of each |
| Exit | The opposite reading only — no stop, no target, no time exit |
| Costs | 0.3 pip spread, zero slippage, 0.1 lot |
| Configurations | 12 periods (7–75) × [crossover, or one of 6 thresholds 50–100] = 84, per timeframe and per year |
| Method | Executed in Formiq's backtester; pips recomputed from each trade's fill prices |
Results by timeframe
| Timeframe | Profitable 2025 | 2025 median | Profitable 2024 | 2024 median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 62 / 84 | +555 pips | 63 / 84 | +1,730 pips |
| 1-hour | 45 / 84 | +30 pips | 57 / 84 | +1,060 pips |
| 4-hour | 19 / 84 | −1,101 pips | 69 / 84 | +1,652 pips |
Read the four-hour row twice. In 2024, 69 of 84 configurations made money at a median of +1,652 pips. In 2025, 19 did, at a median of −1,101 pips. Best timeframe to worst, in one year.
The 15-minute chart was the one consistency — more winners than losers in both years. The cost section below shows what that consistency rests on.
What happened on the four-hour chart
The best four-hour configuration of 2024 was period 40 with a threshold of 70.
| 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Trades | 26 | 25 |
| Win rate | 61.54% | — |
| Profit factor | 4.008 | — |
| Net | +3,843.1 pips | −1,602.7 pips |
A 61.5% win rate at a profit factor of 4.0. As a backtest screenshot it could hardly look better. The following year it lost 1,602.7 pips and ranked 61st of 84.
That was not one unlucky configuration:
The figure at the top of this article plots all 84 of them: one dot per configuration, 2024 across and 2025 up. The cloud slopes down. The more a setting made in 2024, the more it tended to lose in 2025 — rank correlation −0.71.
One number in that table deserves more weight than the profit factor: 26 trades. At 26, a single win or loss moves the win rate by 3.85 points. Four-hour configurations traded between 9 and 165 times a year, most of them in that region — not enough for 61.5% to be a property of the setting.
Does the ranking transfer?
| Timeframe | 2024 ↔ 2025 | first half ↔ second half of 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 0.197 | −0.345 |
| 1-hour | −0.072 | −0.052 |
| 4-hour | −0.710 | −0.145 |
One would mean the ranking carries over exactly, zero means unrelated, negative means it inverts. Five of the six are negative. Choosing Aroon settings from past data did not pay in this test.
What did clear zero in both years
In crossover mode the period is the only variable, so those twelve runs can be laid side by side:
| Period | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | +67 pips | +604 pips |
| 9 | −289 pips | +1,057 pips |
| 12 | −1,088 pips | −547 pips |
| 14 | −633 pips | −1,086 pips |
| 18 | −960 pips | +776 pips |
| 20 | −430 pips | −410 pips |
| 25 | +1,111 pips | +1,025 pips |
| 30 | +1,054 pips | −352 pips |
| 40 | +497 pips | −756 pips |
| 50 | +10 pips | +981 pips |
| 60 | −496 pips | +674 pips |
| 75 | −952 pips | +1,609 pips |
Six of the twelve changed sign between the years. Three lost in both (12, 14, 20). Three finished positive in both: 7, 25 and 50 — but period 7 made +66.8 pips in 2025 and period 50 made +10.4, neither distinguishable from zero. Only period 25 cleared zero by a margin in both years.
| Period 25, crossover | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Trades | 115 | 122 |
| Win rate | 40.87% | 39.34% |
| Profit factor | 1.366 | 1.257 |
| Net | +1,111.3 pips | +1,024.6 pips |
| Rank of 84 | 6th | 44th |
| Max drawdown | 698.5 pips | 845.7 pips |
Sixth one year, 44th the other. Never first — but positive in both, which almost nothing else here managed.
It is also the number you would have used without reading any of this: 25 is Aroon's conventional default. The conclusion of testing 84 configurations was the default.
Is the win rate worth anything?
When the same test ran on QQE, the rank correlation between win rate and net pips was 0.078 — nothing. Aroon differs.
On hourly bars in 2025 that correlation is 0.614. The two moved together. Which is a useful reminder that "win rate doesn't matter" is not a rule you can carry between indicators.
It is still not a target. The highest win rate of the 84 (period 50, threshold 100, at 49.32%) ranked 71st on profit with a profit factor of 0.785 — a losing configuration. A correlation across the middle says nothing about the edge of the distribution.
Win rates spanned 33.33% to 49.32%.
Filters
Added to period 25, crossover:
| Condition | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Aroon alone | 115 trades, 40.87% win, +1,111.3 pips | 122 trades, 39.34% win, +1,024.6 pips |
| ADX ≥ 20 | 68 trades, 47.06% win, +614.6 pips | 82 trades, 30.49% win, −226.1 pips |
| ADX ≥ 25 | 40 trades, 42.50% win, −72.4 pips | 47 trades, 42.55% win, +16.4 pips |
| Tokyo hours only (UTC 0–8) | 53 trades, 50.94% win, +730.0 pips | 58 trades, 41.38% win, +217.8 pips |
| London/NY hours only (UTC 7–21) | 88 trades, 40.91% win, −310.5 pips | 97 trades, 44.33% win, +1,169.9 pips |
Every ADX threshold reduced net profit in both years. The one that lifted the 2025 win rate to 47.06% dropped the 2024 win rate to 30.49%. Screening for trend strength simply did not work on this combination.
The session filters reverse, exactly as they did with QQE: Tokyo helped 2025, London/NY helped 2024.
Stops and targets
| Exit rule | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Opposite reading only | 115 trades, 40.87% win, +1,111.3 pips | 122 trades, 39.34% win, +1,024.6 pips |
| Stop 100 / target 200 | 128 trades, 42.19% win, +1,760.0 pips | 133 trades, 36.84% win, +218.3 pips |
| Stop 50 / target 100 | 164 trades, 42.07% win, +1,143.6 pips | 167 trades, 38.32% win, +1,022.0 pips |
| Stop 50 / target 50 | 177 trades, 51.41% win, +622.0 pips | 188 trades, 50.53% win, +765.0 pips |
| Time exit after 24 bars | 152 trades, 48.68% win, +1,580.4 pips | 159 trades, 42.77% win, +662.8 pips |
The best 2025 exit, stop 100 / target 200, drops to +218.3 pips in 2024.
Stop 50 / target 100 returned almost the same in both years (+1,143.6 and +1,022.0). Stop 50 / target 50 put the win rate above 50% in both (51.41% and 50.53%) without adding profit — worth knowing if a steady win rate is what you are after.
Cost
The rule from the QQE test holds here: the more often a setting trades, the more the spread decides it.
| Spread | 1-hour, period 30 / level 100 (110 trades) | 15-minute, period 25 crossover (516 trades) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0 pips | +2,161.5 | +580.4 |
| 0.3 pips | +2,128.5 | +425.6 |
| 0.6 pips | +2,095.5 | +270.8 |
| 1.0 pips | +2,051.5 | +64.4 |
| 1.5 pips | +1,996.5 | −193.6 |
| 2.0 pips | +1,941.5 | −451.6 |
Across the full range the hourly setting gives up 220 pips; the 15-minute one gives up 1,032 and turns negative at 1.5 pips.
Which matters because the 15-minute chart was Aroon's one consistent timeframe. That consistency sits on a high trade count, and it does not survive a wider spread. The same relationship holds for the other indicators tested this way (RVI, Supertrend).
What this test supports
- Aroon alone was weak here. 45 of 84 hourly configurations profitable in 2025, median +30 pips. The same test on QQE found 191 of 200
- Searching for settings did not pay. Five of six rank correlations are negative; the four-hour chart's is −0.71, meaning the better a setting looked, the worse it did next
- Distrust a high profit factor on few trades. Period 40 / level 70 on four-hour bars: profit factor 4.0, 61.5% win rate, then −1,602.7 pips. It was 26 trades
- Period 25, crossover, was the one that held (+1,111 and +1,025 pips) — Aroon's conventional default
- The win-rate relationship is indicator-specific. 0.614 for Aroon, 0.078 for QQE — but in both, the highest-win-rate setting was a poor one on profit
On this evidence Aroon reads better as one input among several than as something to trade by itself. Building conditions without code is the quickest way to see what adding it to something else does on your own pair.
Limits of this test
- One pair, two years
- Four-hour configurations trade 9 to 165 times a year. Win rates and profit factors at that count are wide numbers before anything else is said about them
- Aroon's calculation varies little between tools, but the trigger logic — how a cross is defined, whether a threshold comparison is inclusive — does. These figures come from Formiq's implementation
- Entries and exits both fill at bar closes
- The spread is modelled as a flat 0.3 pips throughout; real spreads move with the session and around releases
- USD/JPY opened 2025 at 157.227 and closed at 156.670 (−56 pips) inside a 1,900-pip range; 2024 rose 1,632 pips inside a 2,237-pip range. Two years that made new highs and lows in very different rhythms — which, for an indicator that measures only when those happen, may be the whole story
- Volatility varies by hour of the day, which the session-filter rows are exposed to
Questions people ask
- What are the best Aroon settings?
- On USD/JPY hourly bars in 2025 the most profitable configuration was period 30 with a level threshold of 100 — 110 trades for +2,128.5 pips. The same configuration lost 196.6 pips in 2024, ranking 58th of 84. Only 31 of the 84 configurations were profitable in both years, and the steadiest of those was the default period 25 crossover: +1,111.3 pips in 2025 and +1,024.6 pips in 2024.
- Should I use the Aroon crossover or Aroon levels?
- The test disagreed with itself by timeframe. On hourly bars in 2025 only 5 of 12 crossover settings were profitable, at a median of −359 pips, while 40 of 72 level settings were profitable at a median of +90 pips. On four-hour bars in 2024 the crossover won instead, 11 of 12 profitable. Neither reading was reliably better.
- Which Aroon period should I use?
- Testing 12 periods in crossover mode on hourly bars, three finished positive in both 2025 and 2024: periods 7, 25 and 50. Period 7 made only +66.8 pips in 2025 and period 50 only +10.4, so period 25 (+1,111 and +1,025 pips) — the conventional default — was the only one clearing zero by a margin in both. Six of the twelve changed sign between years.
- Can Aroon be traded on its own?
- Weakly, on this evidence. Of the 84 hourly configurations in 2025, 45 were profitable with a median of +30 pips, which is close to a coin flip. On four-hour bars only 19 of 84 made money. For comparison, the same test applied to QQE found 191 of 200 hourly combinations profitable.
- Is Aroon built into MetaTrader?
- MT5 includes it under Oscillators. MT4 does not — you download an .ex4 or .mq4 and place it in MQL4/Indicators, then restart. TradingView has it in the indicator list. Formiq's charts include it as well, with an adjustable period.
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.