Which timeframe leaves the Accelerator Oscillator profitable once its parameters are varied?
Accelerator Oscillator by Timeframe: 27 Settings Tested
Finding
Only the hourly chart. Across 27 combinations of the short, long and smoothing periods, 24 of 27 were profitable in both 2024 and 2025 on hourly bars, 16 of 27 on four-hour bars and none of 27 on 15-minute bars. The largest hourly result in 2025, 3/34/3, produced +3,359.1 pips from 1,160 trades but only +1,108.6 pips in 2024; the largest 2024 result, 3/55/8, produced +3,400.9 pips in 2024 and +1,031.6 pips in 2025, so one year of net pips does not choose the next year's setting. The default 5/34/5 stayed profitable at +2,139.4 and +1,436.8 pips.
Key results
- Profitable in both years
- 24 of 27 hourly, 16 of 27 four-hour, 0 of 27 on 15-minute
- The default 5/34/5
- +2,139.4 pips in 2025 and +1,436.8 pips in 2024
- Carrying 2024's leader into 2025
- 3/55/8 fell from +3,400.9 to +1,031.6 pips
Scope
- USDJPY, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31, with 2024 run under identical settings
- 15-minute, hourly and four-hour bars; 6,226 hourly bars in 2025, 24,903 on 15-minute and 1,610 on four-hour
- 3 short periods (3, 5, 8) x 3 long periods (21, 34, 55) x 3 smoothing periods (3, 5, 8) = 27 combinations
- Flat 0.3 pip spread, 0.1 lots, no slippage
Method
Measured with Formiq's backtester. Buy at the close of the bar where AC crosses above zero, sell where it crosses below, and close only on the opposite zero crossing. No stop, no target and no time exit. Pips are recalculated from each trade's own fill prices.
Limitations
- 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, and 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.