Ichimoku settings: testing the three-signal alignment

Ichimoku puts Tenkan-sen, Kijun-sen, two Senkou spans and Chikou span over the candles. The names make it look more complicated than the calculation: most of the lines are midpoints of a recent high-low range, and three of the five are shifted horizontally.

Across USD/JPY from 2022 through 2025, the standard 9/26/52 three-signal alignment made +558.1, −1,012.7, +536.0 and +1,085.2 pips on H1. Three aligned conditions did not survive all four years. The standard price/Kijun cross, by contrast, was positive in each year.

2022202320242025H1, standard 9/26/52, exit on the opposite signal

What the five Ichimoku lines measure

The area between Senkou A and B is the Kumo, or cloud. The usual reading is bullish above the cloud, bearish below it, and undecided inside it.

Senkou spans are not forecasts

Plotting a line 26 bars ahead does not put future prices into its calculation. The Senkou B value visible at the current x-position was calculated 26 bars ago from the 52 bars available then. The shift changes where the value is drawn, not what the indicator knows.

Bringing Chikou back to the present

Chikou plots the current close 26 bars back. Comparing Chikou with the price at its plotted position is therefore identical to comparing the current close with price 26 bars ago.

The stored Chikou values matched the close 26 bars later without a mismatch in any of the 12 timeframe/year cells. That identity is not predictive evidence; it confirms that a current close has been moved into the past. A test without look-ahead bias uses current close > close 26 bars ago at the current bar.

Time theory counts when change may become more likely

Ichimoku is broader than its five plotted lines. Its framework includes time theory, wave theory and price-observation theory. Time theory counts bars from a significant high or low. Its basic numbers are 9, 17 and 26; composite counts include 33, 42, 52, 65 and 76.

A candidate change date is not a directional signal or a guaranteed reversal. The count also depends on which swing is judged significant. Applying a framework originally developed around daily bars directly to M15 or H1 adds another assumption.

The numerical test below therefore covers four price-and-line rules that have one reproducible definition. Mechanising time theory first requires a separate definition of a “significant” high or low—such as a fractal, ZigZag or N-bar extreme—which creates a new strategy rather than testing time theory alone. We did not choose swing anchors after seeing which counts worked.

Ichimoku settings and trading rules

In MT4 and MT5, use Insert → Indicators → Trend → Ichimoku Kinko Hyo. It draws five lines over price and fills the area between Senkou A and B. Colours vary by platform and template, so use the line names rather than colour alone.

Chikou has no separate period setting. The Kijun value of 26 also sets its displacement.

Four rules, including the three-signal alignment

The long state is the bullish three-signal alignment, commonly called sanyaku koten; the inverse is sanyaku gyakuten. It means all three conditions are true at once, not that three crossovers must happen on the same bar. Each position exits on the opposite signal. Price/cloud opens nothing inside the cloud, and the three-signal rule opens nothing until all three conditions agree.

Choose the reading before tuning the inputs. Changing Tenkan or Senkou B cannot affect a price/Kijun cross, and Senkou B cannot affect a Tenkan/Kijun cross.

How this was measured

Every setting was also run on the first and second halves of 2025. All live settings produced both long and short trades.

All five H1 price/Kijun inputs stayed positive in all four years

The denominator in each cell is the number of inputs that can change that reading.

Across all four years, 103 M15 price/cloud settings, 68 M15 three-signal settings and all five H1 price/Kijun inputs stayed positive. H1 three signals fell from 125 positive variants in 2022 to seven in 2023. No H4 setting remained positive in every year.

Kijun stayed flat on roughly six bars in ten

Ichimoku lines do not average closes. Their midpoint remains unchanged until the rolling high or low changes enough to move it.

Kijun was unchanged on 57.7% to 61.3% of bars across the 12 timeframe/year cells. The H1 price/Kijun rule won 26.26% of its 2025 trades, with a +67.47-pip average win against a −21.62-pip average loss.

The previous year's winner missed the next year's median

Each 2024 winner was carried into 2025 on H1.

The winners from the three single-condition readings finished below their 2025 medians. The three-signal winner, 9/22/72, stayed above its median at +824.1 pips but ranked only 24th of 125 in 2025. The prior winner did not remain the winner.

Three signals led the standard settings in 2025

Standard 9/26/52 on H1 in 2025:

Price/Kijun won only about one trade in four and still made +985.3 pips. Three signals reduced activity to 99 trades and led all four readings in both win rate and net pips. Its 125-setting median was only +259.4 pips, however, so the standard input was stronger than the rule's typical tested input.

ADX 25 made price/cloud negative in both years

The additions below use standard 9/26/52 on H1.

ADX improved the 2025 Tenkan/Kijun result but damaged price/cloud in both years and made three signals negative in 2025. The stop and target also reduced the 2025 three-signal result by 39.2 pips. Neither addition had one effect across every rule and year.

Tenkan/Kijun had little room for trading costs

Only the spread changes here, using H1 in 2025 with standard settings.

The Tenkan/Kijun cross turned negative at a 0.6-pip spread. Standard periods alone do not provide enough margin to ignore the actual cost of the pair and trading session.

Related tests

• Moving-average crossover settings: the same two-line crossing shape built from close averages
• Alligator settings and forward shifts: another multi-line indicator that moves values along the time axis
• Parabolic SAR settings: another trend rule where win and loss size mattered more than win rate

Notes

The figures use Formiq's backtester on USD/JPY from 2022 through 2025, with close fills and a fixed 0.3-pip spread. History starts in December 2021 so the 52-bar calculation and 26-bar displacement are ready before the first measurement window. Chikou comparisons were expressed as current close against the close 26 bars ago to avoid look-ahead bias.