Few things in a trader’s life are more annoying than a trend reversal or a failed breakout. These are so common that a number of trading setups, such as Victor Sperandeo’s 1-2-3 reversal pattern and the 2B rule, have been developed to take advantage of the inability of markets to follow through after breaking out (or down) beyond a previous price extreme.
Writing about the 1-2-3 trend reversal in his second book, Principles Of Professional Speculation, Sperandeo notes that there are three conditions involved in a true change of trend.

  1.  A trendline is broken.
  2. The stock has stopped making “higher highs in an uptrend, or  lower lows in a downtrend.”
  3. Prices must break out above a previous “minor rally high” in a downward market or below a previous minor selloff low in an upward market.

At the point where all three of these events have occurred, there exists a confirmation of a change of trend.

The current system is available for the Metastock and Amibroker platforms. You can purchase the appropriate system for your platform by clicking on the appropriate tab at the left.

DOUBLE BOTTOM & DOUBLE TOP
HEAD & SHOULDERS.

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Sperandeo Long System Performance

TEST PARAMETERS

The performance of the Sperandeo 1-2-3 Long and Short systems was evaluated over a seven-year period using AmiBroker. The following parameters were applied for the backtest:

Initial trading capital = $150,000
Capital per trade= $15,000 (fixed dollar transactions) and no margin or compounding.
Max. Open positions: 11
Symbols:

  • 1-2-3 Long System: Russell 2000 components
  • 1-2-3 Short System: All NYSE constituents (5,629 symbols)

Volume filter: Limit position to 5% of trading volume

Note: Backtest results are what you should expect in real time trading and there are no functions (e.g. Peak or trough or zig) that look in the future.