Simple Regime Switching for SP500

image from  http://brucekrasting.com/
Let us consider two possible ways to trade the SP500.

1. If the index falls today, we buy tomorrow at the open. This is a "mean-reversion" strategy.
2. If the index rises today, we buy tomorrow at the open. A "follow-through" strategy.

From the graphs below, we can see that neither of these strategies worked well from 1960 to today.


Mean Reversion Trading On SP500

Follow-Thru (momentum) trading on SP500

Let's introduce a qualifier that will tell us which strategy to trade at what time.

We will try the most basic one: The correlation between today's return (close to yesterday's close) to the previous day's return. If it is negative we 'll use a contrarian logic. If the correlation is positive we 'll use a momentum logic.

The indicator of choice is the 2-period Relative Strength Index (RSI).

So if correlation between yesterday's and today's return is less than zero we buy on a correction. Otherwise we buy on strength. We trade at the next Open.



Here's the Amibroker Code:

Dayreturn=ROC(C,1);
AutoCor=Correlation(Dayreturn,Ref(Dayreturn,-1),22);
BuyContr=RSI(2)<20;
SellContr=RSI(2)>70;
BuyMom=RSI(2)>60;
SellMoM=RSI(2)<50;
Buy=IIf(AutoCor<0,BuyContr,BuyMom);
Sell=IIf(AutoCor<0,sellContr,sellMom);
SetTradeDelays(1,1,1,1);
BuyPrice=SellPrice=O;
qty=1;
PositionSize=-100/qty;
SetOption("MaxOpenPositions",qty);

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