5 year backtest TSLA strategy
I’ve been developing an intraday breakout strategy on Tesla for months. What started as a simple range breakout system gradually evolved through lots of iterations — adding filters, refining exits, and eventually running a proper walk-forward validation. It’s been running live on my real account since March 11, 2026.
Sharing the full results and methodology here because I think the validation process is worth discussing. Most backtest posts skip this part entirely.
The strategy in plain terms:
The system identifies a price range using the high and low of the previous 4 candles on the 5-minute chart. When price breaks out of that range with enough momentum, an entry is triggered — but only if four filters all agree:
• ADX: confirms the breakout is happening in a trending environment
• Minimum range size (ATR-based): rejects setups where the range is too compressed
• Candle strength: evaluates the size and close position of the breakout candle
• RSI on higher timeframe: avoids entries in overbought/oversold conditions on the higher timeframe
This combination addresses the main failure modes of breakout trading: false breaks, low-momentum moves, and counter-trend entries. The result is a win rate significantly above the 45–55% typical of unfiltered breakout systems.
Exits use a layered approach: fixed TP at 2.75%, EMA trailing stop, no-progress exit, and a no follow-through exit if price returns into the range. In the last hour of the session, the trailing tightens aggressively to protect intraday gains.
~150 trades per year, both long and short, NYSE RTH only.
Backtest results:
(Jan 2021 – Jun 2026, $100k fixed capital, $1/order commission + 5 ticks slippage, no compounding)
• Net profit: +$378,906 (+378.91%)
• CAGR: 33.37%
• Max drawdown: 6.45% — TSLA itself drew down -56% in this period
• Calmar Ratio: 5.17
• Profit Factor: 2.181
• Sortino Ratio: 2.954
• Sharpe Ratio: 0.693
• Win Rate: 71.15% across 825 trades
• 57 of 66 months profitable (86%)
• Zero losing years
Capital is fixed throughout — no compounding.
With 70% equity reinvestment the numbers look very different:
• Net profit: +$1,242,892 (+1,242.89%)
• CAGR: 61.33%
• Max drawdown: 9.52%
• Calmar Ratio: 6.43
• Profit Factor: 2.168
• Sortino Ratio: 2.853
• Sharpe Ratio: 0.887
Walk-forward validation — the part I want to focus on
I ran three WFA iterations to test whether the edge holds on unseen data:
|Iteration| In-Sample | OOS | Profit factor |
|1 |2021–2023 | 2024 | 1.714 |
|2 |2021–2024 | 2025 | 2.878 |
|3 |2021–2025 | 2026 | 2.106 |
All three OOS periods made money. Two of three had a PF above 2.0 out-of-sample.
Iteration 1 is the weakest — H1 2024 was the most directionless period TSLA had in the entire dataset. A breakout system underperforming in a low-momentum regime is expected behavior, not a strategy failure. It recovered as soon as volatility returned.
Happy to discuss the methodology, the exit logic, the walk-forward process, or anything else in the comments.