GMMA settings: does a 12-line ribbon beat two moving averages?

GMMA — the Guppy Multiple Moving Average — draws twelve exponential moving averages at once. The short ribbon (3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15) is usually described as the short-term traders and the long ribbon (30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60) as the longer-term investors.

The claim is not that a fast average crossing a slow one is worth trading. Two lines already say that. What GMMA claims is that twelve lines show you something two cannot — whether both groups agree, or whether one of them is hesitating.

So that is what this article measures. Each ribbon's mean period is pinned at 9 and 45 while the number of lines drops from six to one. At one line apiece the ribbons disappear and what is left is a plain EMA 9 / EMA 45 crossover. Same speed, no fan. Any difference belongs to the fan.

The answer first. There was no difference. One line beat six in 21 of 36 matched runs, and the rank correlation between line count and net pips is 0.023.

M15H1H4mean of 3 triggers x 2 years; USD/JPY, 0.1 lot

What GMMA measures

There is no GMMA formula. It is exponential moving averages, and the only decision is which periods, and how many of them.

The ladder used here keeps the mean period fixed as the count falls:

Every row's short ribbon averages 9.0 periods (8.83 on the six-line row, which uses Guppy's exact numbers) and every long ribbon averages 45.0 (43.33 on the six-line row). The one-line row and the six-line row are looking at averages of the same speed.

That matters. Thinning from the front — keeping only 3, 5 and 8 — would drop the mean period to 5.3, and then a worse result could be blamed either on the missing fan or on the extra speed. Holding the endpoints fixed removes the second explanation.

A one-line GMMA is an EMA crossover

With one line per ribbon, the "cross" trigger compares the short average against the long average, which is an EMA 9 / EMA 45 golden and dead cross.

The test confirms it exactly. On the 2025 hourly chart, the one-line GMMA took 184 trades for +393.5 pips. An EMA 9 / 45 crossover built separately took 184 trades for +393.5 pips. Thinning the ribbon terminates in the crossover everybody already knew.

How to add GMMA to a chart

It is twelve moving averages, so it can always be assembled by hand.

If you are placing twelve averages by hand, the periods are yours to choose. On the evidence in the table below, thinning them while holding the mean period barely moves the result — so the work of placing twelve is not, in this test, buying anything.

How this was measured

The settings, at the resolution a reader needs to reproduce them.

Thinning the ribbon costs nothing

Mean net pips across all three triggers and both years, by line count:

No column climbs. M15 wanders between 1,719 and 1,880; H1 between 441 and 680.

Matched one against one — same timeframe, year and trigger — one line beat six in 21 of 36 comparisons, mean difference +124.9 pips in the one-line direction. The rank correlation between line count and net pips is 0.023.

By median: one line +1,313.5 pips, six lines +1,371.5. Whatever the other ten lines add, it is smaller than this test can measure.

The figure at the top is that table. The four-hour line jumps at one line, but that is the four-hour chart inverting between the two years, not the fan doing something.

Only the 15-minute chart held together

Settings profitable in both 2024 and 2025, out of 18 per timeframe:

Every 15-minute setting made money in both years — the most uniform cell in the seventeen articles of this series.

The shape is textbook trend following. The published setting (cross, six lines) took 831 trades in 2025 at a 27.32% win rate for +1,703.6 pips, with an average win of 55.02 pips against an average loss of 17.86. Three misses are covered by one hit. Trades were held 42 bars — ten and a half hours — so this is not scalping.

The four-hour chart inverted completely. All 18 settings made money in 2024 (median +2,100.2) and all 18 lost it in 2025 (median −1,719.0). Carrying 2024's winner into 2025 returns −2,419.9 pips: 18th of 18, dead last.

The three triggers compared

Three readings of the same ribbons, both years pooled:

All-above trades least often (57% of the cross's count), wins most often — 6.2 points above the cross — and holds longest — exactly what tightening a condition produces. The cross has the highest median, and the three are within 150 pips of each other.

A wide ribbon does raise the win rate

Now to what GMMA says the picture shows. All 5,217 trades, split into quartiles by the gap between the ribbons on the bar before the fill:

M15 · n=995H1 · n=239H4 · n=69trades per quartile; all three triggers, 2024 and 2025

The widest quartile won most often on every timeframe — by 8.64 points on M15, 13.80 on H1 and 13.04 on H4. This is the one GMMA-specific claim that survived.

Win rate and money part company, though:

M15 points the other way. The win rate climbs while the average win falls from 3.96 to 2.06 pips: entering once the ribbons have already separated is more likely to work and has less left to capture. On the hourly and four-hour charts both measures move together.

The long ribbon's order tells you nothing

A common reading is that a long ribbon in strict order means a real trend — investors agreeing, 30 above 35 above 40 and so on.

First, how unusual is that state?

It holds on about 85 bars in 100. Six EMAs of similar length rarely fall out of sequence. A condition true 85% of the year cannot filter anything.

Splitting trades by it does not point one way either:

Two of the three timeframes did better when the ribbon was not in order. On the hourly chart that is 12.32 points of win rate and 21.52 pips a trade. The four-hour chart disagrees on 53 trades.

Compression did not precede a bigger move

The other piece of folklore: the ribbon squeezes, then a big move follows. That is a statement about price rather than a trading rule, so no backtest is needed.

Adding both ribbon widths together, the narrowest tenth of bars counts as compressed. Mean absolute move over the following 24 bars:

after the narrowest tenth of barsafter every other bar

Five of the six moved less after a squeeze. Widening the horizon to 6, 12, 24 and 48 bars gives the same picture: in 21 of 24 combinations the post-squeeze move is the smaller one.

Quiet following quiet is an ordinary property of price and has nothing to do with GMMA. "Compressed means coiled" came out backwards here.

One thing did point somewhere, and it is direction rather than size. Measuring the next 24 bars along the side the ribbons were already leaning, the 15-minute post-squeeze move is +6.31 pips against +0.24 for every other bar. Small, but persistent in the existing lean. The hourly 2024 cell reads −8.50 and disagrees, so this does not survive both years.

Carrying last year's best setting forward

Only the 15-minute chart stayed profitable while losing rank. +1,404.1 pips is 13th of 18 and below the median, but it is not a loss. On that timeframe everything works, so choosing well barely matters.

The four-hour winner went to last. The rank correlations say the same:

The 15-minute chart has every setting profitable and a negative rank correlation. "They all work" and "you can tell which works best" are separate questions.

Filters and stops

Applied to the 15-minute cross on six lines. Trade count, then net pips.

The ADX filter did more damage than anything else in this test. It cuts 831 trades to 113 and turns +1,703.6 pips into −769.3. At ADX 25 both years lose. A trend filter on a trend indicator subtracts, which reads as the two conditions asking the same question twice.

The session filters both came in under the baseline without turning negative.

Stops and targets:

Nothing beat the baseline in both years. The 30/60 stop and the 48-bar exit each improve 2025 and take about a thousand pips out of 2024. A fixed exit breaks the 55-pip-win against 18-pip-loss shape the system depends on.

What it pays in spread

Re-running 2025 on the 15-minute chart with only the spread changed:

The trade count stays at 831. Going from 0 to 3.0 pips costs 2,493.0 pips, which is exactly 831 × 3.0 — the identity that has held in all seventeen articles.

Break-even sits at 2.35 pips — between +290.9 at 2.0 and −540.1 at 3.0. Eight hundred trades a year on a 15-minute chart still leaves room at a realistic USD/JPY spread, and this is the first time in the series that a 15-minute system has not been eaten by cost. The reason is holding time: 42 bars is ten and a half hours, so each trade is worth many times the spread.

What this test supports

Only the findings that pointed the same way in both years:

1. No measurable effect from using twelve lines. With the mean period fixed, one line beat six in 21 of 36 runs and the rank correlation is 0.023
2. The timeframe was the decision. All 18 M15 settings were profitable in both years; no H4 setting was
3. A wider gap raises the win rate. The widest quartile beat the narrowest by 8.64 points on M15 and 13.80 on H1
4. The long ribbon's order is not a filter. It holds on 85% of bars, and two of three timeframes did better without it
5. Compression did not precede expansion. In 21 of 24 combinations the post-squeeze move was the smaller one

The part about twelve lines revealing something is not supported. The gap between the ribbons, read as a win-rate gauge, is.

Moving average crosses measure the crossing itself rather than the fan around it. The same low-win-rate-wins shape shows up in Bollinger Bands and RSI. Fibonacci retracements use the same trick of testing a number against the ones beside it. CCI breaks under an ADX filter the same way this one does. The base-rate problem repeats in the Alligator, whose three lines are stacked in order for 80% of the year. If you would rather check this on your own pair, the conditions can be built without writing code.

Limits of this test

• One pair, USD/JPY, and two years. Nothing here guarantees the same behaviour elsewhere
• The two years are very different. 2024 rose 1,632 pips within a 2,237-pip range; 2025 finished 56 pips lower within a 1,900-pip range. A trend follower profitable in both years on M15 is still resting on those two years
• There is one way of thinning the ribbon here. Endpoints (3–15 and 30–60) are held and the interior is spaced evenly, so the mean period does not move. Thinning from the front or keeping only the middle would give different numbers
• The six-line row uses Guppy's exact periods, so its means are 8.83 and 43.33 rather than the 9.0 and 45.0 of every other row
• Ribbon state is read one bar before the fill, so the trade's own move cannot leak into the feature
• "Compressed" is the narrowest tenth within each period — a relative definition. An absolute width would give different counts
• Entries and exits use bar closes. Real fills differ
• The spread is held at 0.3 pips throughout. Real spreads move with the session and with releases
• Volatility varies by hour, which the session filter results inherit