RSI, ATR, EMA Mean Reversion Setups

Discover 10 mean reversion entry setups for SPY ETF using RSI, ATR, and EMA indicators on Daily charts, tested over 20 years of data.

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: EMA Strategies

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: educational
  • Timeframes: Daily
  • Markets: SPY (S&P 500 ETF)

Indicators used

  • RSI
  • ATR
  • EMA

Source video

Decoded from: What's the best mean reversion trading setup? 10 setups tested on 20 years of data by Critical Trading — watch the original

Key timestamps:

  • 0:00 - Intro
  • 1:54 - 10 mean reversion setup rules and examples
  • 2:50 - RSI (2) below 5 setup
  • 3:30 - Cumulative RSI (2) over 2 days below 20 setup
  • 5:00 - Lower low 3 days in a row setup
  • 5:30 - Lower close 3 days in a row setup
  • 6:00 - Current day's close lower than lowest low of past 5 days setup
  • 6:30 - Close 1% below previous close AND ATR(5) > ATR(10) setup
  • 7:00 - Close 1% below previous close AND ATR(5) < ATR(10) setup
  • 7:40 - Close stretches below EMA(5) by more than 0.5 * ATR(5) setup
  • 9:00 - Close stretches 1% below EMA(5) setup
  • 9:15 - EMA(5) decreases by 0.5% compared to previous day's EMA(5) setup
  • 9:30 - Results discussion

Strategy overview

Mean reversion trades the premise that price stretched away from its average tends to snap back toward it — and this entry is not one setup built on that premise but a comparison of ten of them. The source video from Critical Trading frames the whole thing as a question rather than a thesis: put ten candidate entry conditions on the same twenty years of daily data and see which one comes out ahead. That reframing is what makes this page different from a typical strategy write-up. The object under study is the ranking, not any single trigger.

The chapters that are on record show how wide the candidate list is. It runs from oscillator conditions — a very short-lookback RSI at a depressed reading, and a cumulative variant that sums that reading across consecutive days — through to setups that use no indicator at all, such as a run of consecutive lower lows or a run of consecutive lower closes. That mix is the point: it puts indicator-based and pure-price triggers on the same footing so the comparison is between ideas, not between toolkits. The published chapter list stops after the fourth setup, so the back half of the field and whatever conclusion the test reaches sit inside the video body rather than in its index.

The indicators attached to this entry read as the survey's toolkit rather than one setup's stack — RSI supplies the trigger family, ATR serves as the volatility yardstick and EMA as the reference average, and neither ATR nor EMA is given a segment of its own in the timestamps on record. Everything runs on daily bars. No mechanical rule set was extracted from this video, so this page points to the source and the concept rather than to a decoded set of conditions. It is worth remembering what a bake-off format does and does not settle: a ranking is only as informative as the test behind it, and the exit rule, the instrument and the twenty-year window were all fixed by whoever ran the test, not by the setups being compared.

Topics

mean reversion strategy · rsi strategy · atr strategy · ema strategy · technical indicators · spy etf trading · daily trading strategy · tradingview strategy · pine script · s&p 500 strategy · long only strategy

Frequently asked questions

What is a mean reversion trading setup?

A mean reversion setup enters when price has moved unusually far from a reference average or has fallen for several sessions in a row, on the assumption that the stretch is temporary and price will move back toward its average. The entry condition is what varies between versions — the underlying assumption stays the same.

What does this video compare?

It puts ten different mean reversion entry conditions through the same test on twenty years of daily data. The chapters on record cover the first four: two RSI-based conditions, including a cumulative version measured across consecutive days, and two pure price patterns based on runs of lower lows and lower closes.

Why do RSI, ATR and EMA all appear on this entry?

They are the toolkit the survey draws on rather than one setup's fixed stack — RSI provides the oscillator trigger family, ATR the volatility measure and EMA the reference average. The timestamps on record give segments to the RSI-based setups and to the price-pattern setups; ATR and EMA get none of their own.

Are the exact rules for these setups available on this page?

No mechanical rule set was extracted from this video, so this page covers the concept, the comparison format and the source rather than a decoded set of conditions. Strategy Decoder extracts structured rules from video sources where the source makes them explicit enough to reconstruct, which is not the case here.

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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