Charting the Ups and Downs of RSI2: IWM Edition

This post demonstrates historical performance generated from buying IWM anytime its RSI2<10 and holding the trade for 5 days. Also included are the previously published graphs of SPY and QQQ, for the sake of comparison.

Click on the graphs to enlarge…

I have created a rolling 10, 20, and 50 trade average and plotted them according to the dates each trade was closed.

Until 2007, this setup worked well using IWM. The rolling averages were above 0.0% most of the time. That all changed after the bear market of 2008.

Let’s compare IWM to SPY and QQQ.

SPY Graph:

QQQ Graph:

These graphs demonstrate that SPY is the only ETF of the three that isn’t showing a breakdown when using RSI2<10 to initiate short-term swing trades. QQQ should not even be considered while IWM has suffered since the 2008 bear market.

For these reasons, future RSI2 tests will focus on SPY. The next round of tests will examine various exit strategies. I seek to determine if there is any particular RSI2 strategy that has not shown signs of breaking down.

Previous Posts by Woodshedder

3 Responses to Charting the Ups and Downs of RSI2: IWM Edition

Scavenger says:

I read somewhere of a back test showing a good rsi2 method was buy below 5 and sell above 70. Maybe this article.

Woodshedder says:

Yeah, that works, but it doesn’t trade very often for indexes like SPY. It might work well on individual stocks with some sort of trend filter.

Scavenger says:

Or individual sectors or commodities (more volatility than SPY perhaps). I will try it and post results in the BN (after I sell some stuff first).


Major US US Futures Europe Asia Commodities 2yr Euro Yields 10yr Euro Yields Oil
  • DOW 15,296.90 -0.07%
  • NASDAQ 3,459.34 -0.11%
  • S&P 500 1,650.81 -0.27%
  • VIX 14.18 2.60%
  • SPX 500 (CFD) 1,650.90 -0.27%
  • DOW (CFD) 15,296.50 -0.07%
  • NASDAQ 100 2,992.90 -0.21%
  • EURUSD 1.294 0.70%
  • UK 6,696.79 -2.10%
  • GERMANY 8,351.98 -2.10%
  • FRANCE 3,967.15 -2.07%
  • SPAIN 8,343.60 -1.40%
  • H. KONG 22,669.70 -2.54%
  • JAPAN 14,484.00 -7.32%
  • KOREA 1,969.19 -1.24%
  • SHANGHAI 2,275.67 -1.16%
  • NAT GAS 4.26 1.74%
  • GOLD 1,390.10 1.66%
  • SILVER 22.62 0.72%
  • COPPER 3.27 -3.20%
  • FRANCE 2YR 0.19 -10.90%
  • GERMAN 2YR 0.01 600.00%
  • ITALIAN 2YR 2.18 27.59%
  • SPAIN 2YR 2.81 8.21%
  • FRANCE 10YR 1.94 2.16%
  • GERMAN 10YR 1.44 1.19%
  • ITALIAN 10YR 4.03 3.02%
  • SPAIN 10YR 4.29 2.70%
  • WTI 94.36 0.08%
  • BRENT 102.58 -0.02%
  • WTI/BRENT 8.22
  • 321 CR SPR 21.96 10.04%