Myth Tests

We backtest the trading strategies you see on social media.

Every week we take a strategy that’s going viral, turn it into fixed rules and run it on years of Nasdaq futures data, after costs, with every losing trade counted. Here is what held up and what didn’t.

So far

10 strategies tested. 6 lost money as taught. 3 made money, each with a catch. 1 barely beat chance.

Myth Test #1

Does the gap always fill?

2,320 Nasdaq gaps: 59.5% filled, vs 55.2% for a fake gap. Big gaps kept going.

Mostly myth

Myth Test #2

Is the opening range breakout free money?

6 in 10 first breaks fail. The textbook stop loses; a midpoint stop held up.

Myth as taught

Myth Test #3

The viral 10AM setup

475 winners, 1,378 losers, −$55k as taught. Every year to 2025 was red.

Myth as taught

Myth Test #4

Buy the dip after 3 red days?

$356 vs $38 per contract, but 2022 made more than half the profit.

Partly true

Myth Test #5

The 5-minute-a-day strategy

+$289K on one contract, but three losing years and a −$99K drawdown.

Real, but lumpy

Myth Test #6

The 8:30–9:30 range model

34% winners, +0.12R, up 9 of 10 years. And a −58% drawdown at 2% risk.

Real, with a catch

Myth Test #7

Sell the wick or wait for the sweep?

Both lost on the 5-minute chart. Buying the wick made money.

Myth

Myth Test #8

The 0.146 “exact reversal” level

2,709 losers on NQ. −$119 a trade, 0 of 10 years profitable.

Myth

Myth Test #9

The AI “trained on 12 billion candles”

49.4% direction, a coin flip. −$308K trading every call.

Myth

Myth Test

Should you copy Congress’s trades?

5,940 House buys: −1.6% vs the S&P 500. Only 42% beat it.

Myth

How every Myth Test works

  1. We write the strategy down as fixed rules: entry, stop, target, time window.
  2. We run it on every session in the sample, usually NQ futures 1-minute data from April 2017 to September 2026.
  3. We charge costs on every trade and count every loser.
  4. We check it against a baseline: a random side, a flipped signal, or shuffled data.
  5. We show the year-by-year results, because one great year can hide eight bad ones.

Want a strategy tested? Comment it on any of our videos, or email TradingDecisionsLab@gmail.com.

Simulated backtest. Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain limitations and do not represent actual trading; see the full disclaimer. Past results don’t guarantee future results. Educational only, not financial advice. Futures are leveraged and you can lose more than your deposit.