QQQ/TLT Spread Strategy with RSI

Trade the QQQ/TLT spread using a 3-day RSI on a daily timeframe. Learn to identify buying opportunities in NASDAQ 100 or Treasury Bonds. Maximize your returns w

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: RSI Strategies

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: strategy
  • Timeframes: Daily (implied by 3-day RSI and market close execution)
  • Markets: NASDAQ 100 (QQQ), Long-term Treasury Bonds (TLT)

Indicators used

  • Spread (QQQ/TLT)
  • Relative Strength Index (RSI)

Source video

Decoded from: QQQ & TLT Strategy: Turn $100k into $1.2M (20-Year Backtest) by Quantified Strategies — watch the original

Key timestamps:

  • 0:00 - Introduction to the strategy
  • 0:08 - Trading rules overview
  • 0:18 - Performance claims

Strategy overview

RSI measures the speed and size of recent price moves on a 0–100 scale to flag stretched conditions — but in this entry it is not pointed at a price chart at all. The input is a spread: QQQ divided by TLT, a Nasdaq-100 equity ETF over a long-duration Treasury ETF. That division produces a single line that rises when growth equities outrun long bonds and falls when bonds take the lead, so an oscillator read on it is measuring stretch in the *relationship* between risk-on and risk-off assets rather than in either instrument on its own. It is a relative-strength tool wearing a momentum indicator's clothes.

The source is Quantified Strategies, a channel built around published backtests rather than chart-reading tutorials, and its video is titled "QQQ & TLT Strategy: Turn $100k into $1.2M (20-Year Backtest)." That headline number is worth reading precisely: it is a compounded equity-curve figure from a historical simulation over a two-decade window, not a live track record, and like any such figure it is a property of the specific instrument pair, data set, cost assumptions and period tested. The channel's framing is explicit about the backtest origin, which is more than many strategy videos offer.

The honest caveat with any QQQ/TLT construction is that it is fundamentally a bet on how equities and long-duration Treasuries behave relative to each other, and that relationship is regime-dependent — the negative stock/bond correlation that makes such a ratio oscillate cleanly is a feature of some rate environments and not others, as 2022 demonstrated when both legs fell together. No rules or parameter settings were extracted for this entry, so this page covers the concept and the source video rather than a decoded rule set.

Topics

qqq tlt spread strategy · rsi trading strategy · technical indicators · tradingview strategy · pair trading strategy · daily timeframe · nasdaq 100 · treasury bonds · long-term treasury bonds · qqq trading strategy · tlt trading strategy · pine script · trading strategy

Frequently asked questions

What is the QQQ/TLT spread?

It is a ratio built by dividing the price of QQQ, a Nasdaq-100 equity ETF, by the price of TLT, a long-dated US Treasury ETF. The resulting single line tracks the relative strength of growth equities against long bonds: it rises when equities lead and falls when Treasuries lead, which is why it is often read as a risk-on/risk-off gauge.

Why would you apply RSI to a spread instead of to a price chart?

Applied to a ratio, RSI stops describing whether one asset is overbought and starts describing how far the relationship between two assets has stretched. An extreme reading suggests one leg has run a long way ahead of the other rather than that either instrument is expensive in absolute terms — a relative-strength question, not a price-momentum one.

What does a "20-year backtest" result actually tell you?

It tells you how a rule set would have performed over a specific historical window given specific assumptions about data, execution, costs and reinvestment. It describes the past, not the future, and headline compounding figures are especially sensitive to the period chosen. Treat them as a starting point for testing, not as an expected outcome.

What should I look into before trading a QQQ/TLT ratio approach?

Whether the stock/bond correlation regime the ratio depends on still holds; how you would actually execute a two-legged position and what that costs in commissions and financing; and how distributions on both ETFs affect the ratio over time. Strategy Decoder catalogs strategies like this one from video sources so you can compare and evaluate them alongside their originals.

About this strategy page

This trading strategy was decoded by Strategy Decoder's AI from a public YouTube trading video and turned into a structured, reviewable specification. In the interactive app this page shows the full entry and exit logic, risk management settings, the indicators involved with their parameters, AlgoWizard-compatible logic and a Pine Script export ready for TradingView backtesting — plus an automated backtest verdict when one has been computed for this strategy.

Strategy Decoder catalogs 2,229 decoded strategies. Each one is extracted with confidence scoring, cross-linked to the indicators it uses, and kept up to date as new videos are processed daily. Load this page with JavaScript enabled to use the interactive tools, or start from the strategy explorer to filter by methodology, market and timeframe.

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