Does the Fair value gap retrace (1H) strategy work?

We coded the fair value gap retrace (1h) to exact mechanical rules and ran it on june 1, 2025 – june 1, 2026 (12 months) of real data with fees on. No discretion, losers published as losers. Here is the verified result.

Secuora Verification

Verified Result

38/ 100
Weak / Unverified

Weak: the mechanical version barely cleared, or failed to clear, the fee hurdle.

Markets tested
4
Markets profitable
1 / 4
Total trades
341
Win rate
27.6%
Profit factor
0.66
Avg net P&L
-17.9%
Avg max drawdown
23.2%
Best market
ETH +6.3%
MarketTFTradesWinPFMax DDNet
ETH1h4734.0%1.276.1%+6.3%
Gold (PAXG)1h6728.4%0.6816.1%-14.5%
BTC1h13625.7%0.6830.8%-25.9%
EUR (EURUSDT)1h9126.4%0.4039.9%-37.6%
How the SVS 38 breaks down ▾
Edge (profit factor)
2.5 / 35
Robustness (markets)
5 / 20
Sample size
16.9 / 20
Drawdown control
9.2 / 15
Consistency
4.2 / 10

12 months of real 1-minute data, fees on (0.05%/side), $10k start, 1% risk. How the score works →

The exact rules tested

  • Enter when price retraces 50% into a fresh fair value gap, on the 1H; structure stop; 2R target

How to read this

This is the mechanical floor — what the rules alone produced after costs, with zero discretion. A low score doesn’t mean the idea is worthless; it’s the baseline your filtering and judgement have to beat. The SVS methodology explains exactly how the score is built.

Test your own version of this

Add a trend filter, a session window, or a confluence and see if you can beat the floor. Describe it in plain English and the AI backtester runs it on real data.

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Questions

Is the Fair value gap retrace (1H) strategy profitable?

Weak: the mechanical version barely cleared, or failed to clear, the fee hurdle. Across 4 markets and 341 trades with fees on, it had a profit factor of 0.66 and an average net return of -17.9%.

What is the win rate of the Fair value gap retrace (1H) strategy?

27.6% across all tested markets. Note that win rate alone is misleading — with a fixed reward-to-risk target, a mechanically negative strategy can still win 30–45% of the time.

How was the Fair value gap retrace (1H) strategy tested?

Coded to exact mechanical rules and run on June 1, 2025 – June 1, 2026 (12 months) of real 1-minute data, fees on (0.05% per side), $10,000 start, 1% risk per trade, on Secuora's deterministic engine. No discretion.

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