Simple Moving Average Strategy

Implement a simple moving average Forex trading strategy. Go long when price is above the MA, short when below, staying always in the market.

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: Moving Average Strategies

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: strategy
  • Markets: Forex

Indicators used

  • Moving Average

Source video

Decoded from: Mastering Forex Trading: A Simple Moving Average Strategy by Algo Trading With Kevin Davey — watch the original

Key timestamps:

  • 0:00 - Introduction to the strategy
  • 0:05 - Long entry condition
  • 0:08 - Short entry condition
  • 0:12 - Strategy is always in the market
  • 0:14 - No stop loss or profit target mentioned

Strategy overview

A simple moving average strategy uses a smoothed average of recent closes to define direction, and trades in the direction that average points. What separates this entry from the dozens of other SMA setups is not the indicator but the structural choice sitting on top of it: as presented in the source video, the system is *always in the market* — there is no flat state, only long or short.

That single design decision changes what the strategy actually is. In an always-in-the-market system the reversal signal doubles as the exit: closing a long and opening a short are the same event, so the strategy never sits on the sidelines waiting for a better setup. The video's own outline reflects this — it lists a long condition, a short condition, the always-in-the-market property, and then explicitly notes that no stop loss or profit target is specified. That absence is not an oversight to be filled in casually; it means risk control has been moved entirely onto the reversal logic, position sizing, and instrument choice rather than onto a protective order.

The framing comes from an algorithmic-trading channel, "Algo Trading With Kevin Davey", and the presentation is extremely compressed — the whole walkthrough spans a handful of seconds of markers, and neither the averaging period nor the timeframe is stated. Read honestly, that makes this a structural template rather than a finished specification: the always-in-the-market skeleton is well defined, while the parameters that determine whether it survives contact with forex spreads and overnight financing are left to the trader. No mechanical rule set was decoded from this source, so what this page offers is the concept and the video's specific angle on it, not an extracted system.

Topics

simple moving average strategy · forex strategy · trading strategy · pine script · technical indicators · moving average · always in market strategy · trend following strategy

Frequently asked questions

What does "always in the market" mean in a moving average strategy?

It means the system holds a position at all times — either long or short, never flat. The signal that closes one position simultaneously opens the opposite one, so the reversal itself acts as the exit and there is no waiting period between trades.

Does this simple moving average strategy use a stop loss or a profit target?

The source video explicitly notes that neither is mentioned. In an always-in-the-market design the opposite signal is the exit mechanism, which means drawdown between signals is bounded only by the market and by how the position is sized — not by a protective order.

What moving average period and timeframe does the strategy use?

Neither is specified in the source. The video presents the structure — long condition, short condition, continuous exposure — without stating a lookback length or a chart timeframe, so those remain choices the trader has to make and test rather than properties of the strategy.

How should an always-in-the-market SMA system be evaluated before trading it?

Because it is continuously exposed, transaction costs and financing accumulate on every reversal, so a backtest that ignores spread and swap will flatter it. Test it across multiple averaging periods and timeframes to see whether performance depends on one narrow setting. Strategy Decoder catalogs strategies like this one from video sources so the concept can be reconstructed and evaluated on TradingView.

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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