{"schemaVersion":"1.0","type":"BacktestEvidence","id":"https://formiq.jp/evidence/psychological-line-settings/data.json","evidencePage":"https://formiq.jp/evidence/psychological-line-settings","language":"en","article":{"title":"Is the Psychological Line 75% Rule Profitable? 5,760 Tests","url":"https://formiq.jp/blog/psychological-line-settings","published":"2026-08-28","updated":"2026-08-30"},"author":{"name":"Yuichi Saiki","alternateName":"斉木勇一","url":"https://formiq.jp/about/yuichi-saiki"},"verified":"2026-08-30","question":"Is a psychological line level of 75 the same as 75%, and does fading it work?","finding":"The number typed in is not the percentage. The reading is a count out of N, so a 12-bar line takes only 13 values — 0, 8.3, 16.7 and so on — and asking for more than 75 asks for 10 bars out of 12, which is 83.3%. At period 12 anything from 75 to 83 gives the identical rule, while 74 gives 9 of 12, or 75.0%. Across periods 6, 10, 12, 14, 20 and 26, a typed 75 never meant 75%. The comparison operator changes the frequency fourfold: on 15-minute bars in 2025 a 12-bar line sat strictly above 75 on 1.76% of bars and at 75 or above on 7.02%, against 2.00% and 7.51% for a coin with the same up-bar rate. Mean reversion did win, but only in the flat year: on 15-minute bars 80 of 90 buy-the-lows settings finished 2025 ahead and kept +4.83 pips a trade after subtracting the year's drift, while the same calculation on 2024 gave −46.40 pips on four-hour bars, negative in 49 of 57 settings.","methodology":"Measured with Formiq's backtester across three readings — fade, band break and midline cross — exiting on the opposite signal, with the fade carrying its own exit level. Both up-bar definitions were run. The drift is removed by subtracting what an unconditional position of the same length would have earned from the year's move.","scope":["USDJPY, 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31, with 2024 run identically for comparison","15-minute, hourly and four-hour bars","3 readings x 6 periods (6 to 26) x levels (fade: 5 entries x 3 exits; break: 5; midline: 5) = 240 per cell per up-bar definition; 3 timeframes x 4 windows = 5,760 runs","0.3 pip spread fixed, 0.1 lots, filled at the close"],"keyResults":[{"label":"What a typed 75 actually requires at period 12","value":"10 bars of 12, or 83.3%. Typing 74 gives 9 of 12, or 75.0%"},{"label":"Share of bars above 75 and at 75 or above","value":"1.76% and 7.02% on 15-minute bars; a coin gives 2.00% and 7.51%"},{"label":"Reversal edge per trade after removing drift","value":"+4.83 pips on 15-minute bars in 2025, −46.40 pips on four-hour in 2024"}],"limitations":["One pair, two years. The psychological line came out of equity markets, and a different instrument's bar-size distribution changes which rungs appear at all.","2024 rose 1,632 pips and 2025 fell 56. The reversal share was positive only in 2025.","Many fade settings barely trade — about 25 a year on hourly bars and about 10 on four-hour. Some show a 100% win rate off five trades, and 48 to 74 of 180 settings fired fewer than five times.","The spread is fixed at 0.3 pips. The hourly midline breaks even at 0.98, so that assumption is doing real work.","Exits are on the opposite signal. A 30-pip stop with a 90-pip target helped in both years; nothing else did.","The two up-bar definitions could not be separated on results: 47.1% against 52.9% across 2,134 settings."]}