The best indicator for USD/CAD
We backtested 366 indicators across daily, weekly and hourly charts on real USD/CAD history. Here's what actually worked — risk-adjusted, out-of-sample, with costs.
Fisher Transform
On the daily chart, this is the strongest risk-adjusted edge we found for USD/CAD over ~23.5 years — beating buy-and-hold by 4.3% CAGR.
Best multi-indicator combo
Going long only when all 2 agree was the strongest confluence setup we found for USD/CAD — beating buy-and-hold by 4.1% CAGR, out-of-sample. Fewer, higher-conviction trades than any single indicator.
The winner on each chart
Every indicator, ranked
Ranked by Sharpe (risk-adjusted return). Hypothetical, fees included.
| # | Indicator | TF | CAGR | Sharpe | Max DD | Win | Trades | vs B&H |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fisher Transform ✓ | Daily | 4.4% | 0.72 | -35.2% | 32.5% | 547 | 4.3% |
| 2 | Parabolic SAR (fast) ✓ | Daily | 3.2% | 0.53 | -34.6% | 34.3% | 435 | 3.1% |
| 3 | DMI Direction ✓ | Daily | 2.8% | 0.47 | -34.7% | 25.7% | 315 | 2.8% |
| 4 | DeMarker (7) ✓ | Daily | 2.2% | 0.37 | -31.6% | 34.3% | 429 | 2.1% |
| 5 | Connors RSI-2 ✓ | Weekly | 2.7% | 0.33 | -18.4% | 59.6% | 57 | 2.6% |
| 6 | Parabolic SAR ✓ | Daily | 1.7% | 0.31 | -31.4% | 33.7% | 288 | 1.6% |
| 7 | ADXR ✓ | Daily | 1.4% | 0.3 | -24.2% | 29.3% | 164 | 1.4% |
| 8 | Connors RSI ✓ | Weekly | 2.4% | 0.3 | -20.0% | 64.5% | 62 | 2.3% |
| 9 | Bollinger Mean-Reversion ✓ | Weekly | 1.8% | 0.25 | -21.9% | 60.0% | 20 | 1.7% |
| 10 | Fibonacci Bands ✓ | Weekly | 1.8% | 0.25 | -21.9% | 60.0% | 20 | 1.7% |
| 11 | Projection Bands ✓ | Weekly | 1.8% | 0.24 | -28.2% | 64.3% | 42 | 1.6% |
| 12 | Choppiness Index ✓ | Daily | 0.5% | 0.23 | -10.4% | 36.6% | 41 | 0.4% |
| 13 | DeMarker (14) ✓ | Daily | 1.2% | 0.22 | -43.3% | 30.7% | 313 | 1.1% |
| 14 | Vortex (7) ✓ | Daily | 1.1% | 0.21 | -33.3% | 31.0% | 429 | 1.0% |
✓ = held up out-of-sample. Hypothetical, costs included. See methodology.
For USD/CAD, Fisher Transform on the daily timeframe gave the best balance of return and risk in our test. It beat buy-and-hold — but remember: this is a hypothetical backtest of a standard rule, not a recommendation. Markets change. See the methodology and disclaimer.
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