200 QQE settings tested on USD/JPY: what actually held up
200 QQE parameter sets backtested on USD/JPY over 2025 and 2024: the best settings, why last year's winner ranked 139th this year, and which knob is worth touching.
Search for QQE settings and you land on the same three numbers almost every time: RSI period 14, smoothing 5, factor 4.236. Most tools ship with them.
So are they the right ones? I backtested 200 parameter combinations on USD/JPY across the whole of 2025, ran the same 200 on three timeframes, and then ran all of it again on 2024 to see whether anything survived the change of year.
The headline answer: the most profitable combination in 2025 was RSI period 17, smoothing 3, factor 4.236 — 233 trades for +1,694.8 pips. But that number is the least useful thing in this article. The combination that topped 2024 came 139th out of 200 in 2025, and that gap is the practical finding: there is something to decide before the parameters, and it is not the parameters.
What QQE is measuring
QQE (Quantitative Qualitative Estimation) does not read RSI directly. It smooths RSI, then compares that smoothed line against a band built from the line's own volatility.
- Calculate RSI (RSI period)
- Smooth it with an EMA (smoothing, or SF)
- Take the bar-to-bar change of that smoothed line and smooth it too
- Multiply by a coefficient to set the band width (factor, 4.236 by default)
- Read trend direction from which side of the band the smoothed RSI sits on
Three knobs, three different behaviours.
| Knob | What raising it does |
|---|---|
| RSI period | Dulls the underlying RSI. Fewer false turns, slower reaction |
| Smoothing (SF) | Flattens the line. Fewer signals |
| Factor | Widens the band. Fewer signals, each trade held longer |
The measured version: on hourly bars in 2025, smoothing of 2 averaged 345 trades a year and smoothing of 12 averaged 185. Raising factor from 2 to 5.236 took the average from 328 trades to 196. All three knobs reduce trade count, which matters later when the cost per trade enters the arithmetic.
Adding QQE to a chart
QQE is not built into every platform, so the route differs.
| Platform | How to add it |
|---|---|
| MT4 / MT5 | Not included. Download an .ex4 or .mq4 file, drop it into MQL4/Indicators (MQL5/Indicators on MT5), restart the terminal |
| TradingView | Search the indicator list for "QQE" and add a community script |
| Browser (Formiq) | Included; pick it from the indicator list |
One caveat worth stating up front: QQE implementations differ. Whether the smoothing uses an EMA or Wilder's method, and how the band's trailing rule is written, changes where the line sits. The numbers here come from Formiq's implementation, and another script fed the same three parameters may not produce the same trades.
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 | QQE line crosses above the signal line, filled at that bar's close |
| Sell | QQE line crosses below the signal line, filled at that bar's close |
| Exit | The opposite crossover only — no stop, no target, no time exit |
| Costs | 0.3 pip spread, zero slippage, 0.1 lot |
| Combinations | 8 RSI periods (6–25) × 5 smoothing values (2–12) × 5 factors (2–5.236) = 200, run per timeframe and per year |
| Method | Executed in Formiq's backtester; pips recomputed from each trade's fill prices |
Holding to the opposite crossover with no stop keeps the test about QQE and nothing else. Stops and targets are measured separately further down.
The settings that worked in 2025
The top ten hourly combinations of 2025, with their 2024 results next to them.
| RSI period | Smoothing | Factor | 2025 trades | 2025 win | 2025 PF | 2025 net | 2024 net | 2024 rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | 3 | 4.236 | 233 | 42.49% | 1.338 | +1,694.8 | +2,079.4 | 60th |
| 10 | 5 | 2.618 | 277 | 42.24% | 1.306 | +1,638.8 | +1,226.3 | 156th |
| 10 | 5 | 3.236 | 248 | 43.15% | 1.319 | +1,597.5 | +1,686.1 | 121st |
| 14 | 3 | 4.236 | 241 | 42.32% | 1.302 | +1,561.4 | +1,984.7 | 76th |
| 12 | 5 | 2.618 | 269 | 41.64% | 1.289 | +1,545.2 | +1,835.9 | 102nd |
| 12 | 5 | 3.236 | 239 | 43.93% | 1.312 | +1,529.2 | +2,014.2 | 70th |
| 8 | 5 | 3.236 | 258 | 44.19% | 1.287 | +1,501.7 | +1,424.2 | 146th |
| 25 | 12 | 2 | 193 | 39.38% | 1.355 | +1,499.3 | +2,045.5 | 66th |
| 14 | 3 | 5.236 | 208 | 44.71% | 1.299 | +1,487.7 | +2,028.3 | 68th |
| 6 | 8 | 2.618 | 265 | 43.02% | 1.282 | +1,468.4 | +1,373.9 | 151st |
(Net figures are pips, PF is profit factor, rank is within the same year's 200 combinations.)
The defaults — 14 / 5 / 4.236 — are not in that table. They returned +1,115.5 pips in 2025 (53rd) and +1,942.5 pips in 2024 (86th). Mid-pack, both years.
The losing end is worth the same attention. The worst 2025 combination was RSI 6 / smoothing 2 / factor 4.236 at −809.9 pips, and the same settings made +513.7 pips in 2024. Only one pattern lost in both years: RSI 12 / smoothing 2 / factor 2.
Last year's answer does not survive the year
This is the part the sweep made unarguable.
The best combination of 2024 — RSI 10, smoothing 8, factor 5.236, worth +2,795.1 pips that year — returned +610.6 pips in 2025, ranking 139th of 200. The 2025 median was +891.3 pips. Picking last year's winner did worse than picking at random.
The figure at the top of this article plots all 200 of them: one dot per combination, 2024 net pips across and 2025 net pips up. If last year's ranking carried forward, the dots would form a rising line. The rank correlation is 0.29.
Splitting 2025 into halves makes it sharper still: the rank correlation between the first and second half of the same year is −0.65. Settings that led the first half trailed the second.
None of which means QQE failed. On hourly bars, 191 of the 200 combinations were profitable in 2025 and 188 in 2024, with 181 profitable in both years. The indicator worked across this two-year window on this pair. What did not work was the search for the single best number.
Timeframe moved results more than parameters did
The same 200 combinations, changing only the timeframe:
| Timeframe | Profitable in 2025 | 2025 median | Profitable in 2024 | 2024 median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 69 / 200 | −192 pips | 1 / 200 | −1,823 pips |
| 1-hour | 191 / 200 | +891 pips | 188 / 200 | +1,846 pips |
| 4-hour | 196 / 200 | +688 pips | 134 / 200 | +601 pips |
On 15-minute bars in 2024, exactly one combination of 200 finished positive — RSI 6 / smoothing 2 / factor 2, at +158.2 pips, which then lost 276 pips in 2025.
Four-hour bars beat hourly on the 2025 count, then fell to 134 in 2024. They also produce only 53 to 65 trades a year, which is too few to read a win-rate difference from.
Holding the parameters at the defaults and moving nothing but the timeframe:
| Timeframe | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| 15-minute | 855 trades, 38.25% win, −269.3 pips | 870 trades, 35.29% win, −1,320.8 pips |
| 1-hour | 208 trades, 43.27% win, +1,115.5 pips | 204 trades, 50.49% win, +1,942.5 pips |
| 4-hour | 53 trades, 49.06% win, +875.3 pips | 54 trades, 24.07% win, −588.1 pips |
Why the 15-minute chart loses
Not because the indicator degrades. Because of how many times the cost is paid.
Hourly bars produce 233 trades a year here; 15-minute bars produce 643. The spread per trade is identical — it is charged 2.8 times as often. Re-running 2025 with nothing changed but the spread:
| Spread | 1-hour (233 trades) | 15-minute (643 trades) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0 pips | +1,764.7 | +872.0 |
| 0.3 pips | +1,694.8 | +679.1 |
| 0.6 pips | +1,624.9 | +486.2 |
| 1.0 pips | +1,531.7 | +229.0 |
| 1.5 pips | +1,415.2 | −92.5 |
| 2.0 pips | +1,298.7 | −414.0 |
Moving from 0 to 2.0 pips costs the hourly test 466 pips and the 15-minute test 1,286 pips. The 15-minute version turns negative at 1.5 pips; the hourly version is still profitable at 2.0.
This is not specific to QQE. RVI trades 547 times a year on the same terms and gives up 1,094 pips; Supertrend trades 76 times and gives up 152. It applies to any setting that signals often, which is why checking it against your own account's spread is worth more than another pass over the parameters.
What held across both years
Averaging each knob's value over every combination of the other two, two directions pointed the same way in 2024 and 2025.
| Smoothing | 2025 average | 2024 average |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | +413 pips | +646 pips |
| 3 | +880 pips | +1,475 pips |
| 5 | +1,102 pips | +1,810 pips |
| 8 | +966 pips | +2,135 pips |
| 12 | +726 pips | +2,182 pips |
Smoothing of 2 came last in both years, at under half the return of the better values.
| RSI period | 2025 average | 2024 average |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | +578 pips | +1,177 pips |
| 10 | +818 pips | +1,669 pips |
| 14 | +865 pips | +1,699 pips |
| 20 | +891 pips | +1,819 pips |
| 25 | +904 pips | +1,833 pips |
A short RSI period came last in both years too, improving monotonically out to 25. Both findings say the same thing: do not set these short.
Factor swapped optima — 2.618 averaged best in 2025 (+913 pips), 4.236 in 2024 (+1,921 pips). It does have one consistent effect across both years: raising it raises the win rate, from 39.6% to 43.3% in 2025 and 42.0% to 49.6% in 2024, while trade count falls from 328 to 196. Factor trades frequency for win rate. It does not maximise profit.
Does a higher win rate make more money?
It did not.
Across the 200 hourly combinations of 2025, the rank correlation between win rate and net pips was 0.078 — no relationship worth acting on. That holds for QQE, not for indicators in general: the same test run on Aroon put it at 0.614, and moving average crossovers change the sign of it from one timeframe to the next. The highest-win-rate combination (RSI 6 / smoothing 12 / factor 5.236, at 47.98%) placed 153rd of 200 on profit. The whole win-rate range spans 36.68% to 47.98%, so there is little room to compete on it anyway.
Adding the filters people usually reach for, on top of the defaults:
| Condition | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| QQE alone | 208 trades, 43.27% win, +1,115.5 pips | 204 trades, 50.49% win, +1,942.5 pips |
| Only when ADX ≥ 25 | 120 trades, 51.67% win, +1,307.3 pips | 112 trades, 48.21% win, −8.5 pips |
| ADX ≥ 20 plus DI agreement | 81 trades, 34.57% win, −344.8 pips | 77 trades, 41.56% win, +593.5 pips |
| Tokyo hours only (UTC 0–8) | 126 trades, 49.21% win, +1,154.9 pips | 119 trades, 49.58% win, +1,039.4 pips |
| London/NY hours only (UTC 7–21) | 157 trades, 35.67% win, −458.5 pips | 145 trades, 43.45% win, +1,083.5 pips |
The ADX ≥ 25 filter looks ideal in 2025 alone: win rate up from 43.27% to 51.67%, higher net, and maximum drawdown down from 714.7 to 315.6 pips. Applied to 2024 it returns −8.5 pips, erasing the +1,942.5 the unfiltered version made.
The session filter reverses sign outright: −458.5 pips in 2025, +1,083.5 pips in 2024.
Filters do move the win rate. Which direction they move it in is what changes from year to year.
Stops and targets
Same pattern again. Adding exits to RSI 17 / smoothing 3 / factor 4.236, with the crossover exit still active:
| Exit rule | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Opposite crossover only | 233 trades, 42.49% win, +1,694.8 pips | 240 trades, 46.25% win, +2,079.4 pips |
| Stop 50 / target 100 | 281 trades, 44.84% win, +3,241.0 pips | 286 trades, 36.36% win, +308.9 pips |
| Stop 50 / target 50 | 333 trades, 51.05% win, +2,277.7 pips | 316 trades, 42.41% win, −515.8 pips |
| Stop 100 / target 200 | 240 trades, 42.50% win, +990.2 pips | 250 trades, 43.60% win, +1,597.4 pips |
| Time exit after 24 bars | 248 trades, 43.15% win, +1,943.1 pips | 257 trades, 44.36% win, +2,372.9 pips |
The best 2025 exit — stop 50, target 100 — is close to the worst of this group in 2024. Stop 50 / target 50 pushes the 2025 win rate to 51.05% and loses money in 2024.
Only the 24-bar time exit behaved roughly the same in both years. Unremarkable, and the only thing here that did not reverse.
What this test supports
Restricting the list to what pointed the same way in both years:
- Choose the timeframe first. Hourly was the most stable of the three on this pair. The gap between timeframes dwarfed the gap across 200 parameter sets
- Do not set smoothing to 2, or the RSI period as short as 6. Both came last in both years
- Treat factor as a win-rate and frequency control, not a profit control. The profit-maximising value swapped between years
- Check it against your own spread. For high-frequency settings that decides the outcome before the parameters do
- Do not settle on a "best" setting from one year of data. 2024's first place was 2025's 139th
Nothing in this test rewarded narrowing QQE down to one triple of numbers. Run the same procedure over plain RSI and the period knob points opposite ways depending on whether you fade the line or follow it. What paid was the timeframe, avoiding the extreme values, and the cost per trade. If you want to check the same thing on your own pair and dates, building the rules without writing code takes about as long as reading this article.
Limits of this test
- One pair, two years. Nothing here promises the same behaviour on other pairs or other periods
- QQE implementations vary between scripts; these figures come from Formiq's and may not match another script fed the same parameters
- Entries and exits both fill at bar closes. Real fills differ
- The spread is modelled as a flat 0.3 pips for the whole period. Real spreads move with the session and around data 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 of different character reaching the same conclusion is some support, but two years is still two years
- Volatility varies by hour of the day, which the session-filter rows above are exposed to
Questions people ask
- What are the best QQE settings?
- On USD/JPY hourly bars in 2025, the most profitable combination was RSI period 17, smoothing 3, factor 4.236 — 233 trades, +1,694.8 pips, 42.49% win rate. The same settings ranked 60th of 200 in 2024, and the combination that ranked first in 2024 fell to 139th in 2025. A best setting found in one year of data is not the best setting for the next.
- Are the default QQE settings (14 / 5 / 4.236) good enough?
- In this test the defaults returned +1,115.5 pips on hourly bars in 2025 (53rd of 200) and +1,942.5 pips in 2024 (86th of 200). Mid-pack both years, never near the bottom. Choosing the timeframe and checking your spread moved results far more than tuning the three parameters did.
- Which timeframe suits QQE best?
- Running the same 200 combinations on different timeframes, 191 were profitable on hourly bars in 2025 and 188 in 2024. On 15-minute bars only 69 were profitable in 2025 and just 1 in 2024. Four-hour bars swung between 196 and 134, on only 53 to 65 trades a year. Hourly was the most stable in this test.
- What win rate does QQE produce on its own?
- Across all 200 hourly combinations in 2025 win rates fell between 36.68% and 47.98%. Because the crossover is held to the opposite signal with no stop, wins are less frequent than losses but larger on average. The rank correlation between win rate and net pips was 0.078 — effectively unrelated.
- Does MetaTrader include QQE?
- No. On MT4 or MT5 you download an .ex4 or .mq4 file and drop it into MQL4/Indicators (MQL5/Indicators on MT5), then restart the terminal. On TradingView you search the indicator list for QQE and add a community script. Formiq's charts include it by default.
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.