Extra Entries: V-Shape Recovery and Early Momentum
Almost every optional filter in the Simulator works the same way: it ANDs one more condition onto a signal the base strategy already produced. Turn more of them on and you trade less.
The two blocks in this lesson run the other direction. They OR in a buy signal of their own, independent of the base strategy. Turn them on and you trade more.
1. Why these are different
A moving-average crossover strategy only enters when a cross happens. In crypto, moves frequently finish long before any cross does — a sharp drop that snaps straight back is the classic case, over and done inside a few bars, invisible to any crossover rule.
So these two blocks don't wait for the base signal. When their own conditions are met they produce a buy themselves, OR'd together with whatever the base strategy said.
They're OR'd in, but the gates still apply. Filters like RSI, MACD and volume run after the entry triggers have been combined, so these blocks can be narrowed with the others.
That's the intended way to use them: switch on one broad entry, then stack as many gates on top as you need.
2. The three things V-shape measures
The name comes from the shape, but the block doesn't look at shape — it looks at three numbers. The gap between the highest and lowest close of the last N bars, what percentage of that gap the current close has closed, and how many times the average volume this bar traded.
That distinction matters more than it sounds, because the window those extremes are measured over includes the current bar. On a bar that closes higher than the previous few, the current close IS the highest close, so the "recovery" scores 100% automatically and the "drop" is just the height of the recent range.
08/19, at the block’s own defaults. The three numbers it measures: a 6.2% gap between the 3-bar high and low, 100% of that gap closed by the current bar, and 5.88× the average volume. Which bar the high and the low actually landed on is marked too — that part the block’s name doesn’t tell you.
- Price (close)
- The 3-bar lookback window
- Trigger bar
- Volume
BTC/USDT · 4h · Binance · 2026-08-03 → 2026-09-05
All six triggers in this window, at the default settings, have the same shape — low first, high second. Not one of them is a V. That's structural: because the window the high is measured over includes the current bar, any bar that closes up becomes its own high and scores 100% recovery automatically.
That doesn't make the block useless. What it actually catches is a short-term breakout backed by volume, which is a reasonable thing to trade. It just isn't the drop-and-bounce its name and description describe. A genuine V can fire it — high first, then a low, then a close back above 80% of the fall — but on this data none ever did.
The deepest trigger here is 08/19 12:00 — the same bar the volume lesson singles out, on 5.88× average volume. But look at which bars the high and the low landed on: the low came two bars before the high, and the high is the trigger bar itself. Those three closes ran 64,296 → 64,516 → 68,554. That is a breakout, not a dip and a bounce.
3. Moving the settings
6 bars fire at these settings. Loosen any single threshold and the count climbs quickly — that rate of change is the thing to watch, not the count itself.
- Price (close)
- Trigger bar
BTC/USDT · 4h · Binance · 2026-08-03 → 2026-09-05
The "minimum recovery %" setting's slider goes to 150, but anything above 100 fires nothing, ever. There's a structural reason: the peak is computed over a window that includes the current bar, so the current close can never exceed the peak, and the recovery percentage is mathematically capped at 100.
Leaving that range in a sweep spends a third of the search on values that cannot produce a result. Keep it at or below 100.
4. Early momentum: entering below the trend line
The second block's idea fits in one sentence: enter while price is still below its trend moving average — that is, at a moment a normal trend-following rule would refuse.
There are only three conditions. The close is below the trend average, the fast Hull average is higher than it was on the previous bar, and volume is above its own average.
The whole idea: price is still below its 50-bar average, but the 20-bar Hull average has turned up on above-average volume. 3 bars qualify here, and the label under each is what price did over the following 24 bars.
- Price (close)
- SMA 50 — entry must be below
- HMA 20 — must be turning up
- Trigger bar
BTC/USDT · 4h · Binance · 2026-08-03 → 2026-09-05
With the trend average at 50 bars it fires three times here. Two of them, 08/17 00:00 and 04:00, were followed by +17.5% and +20.1% over the next 24 bars — close to the exact start of the big move. The third, on 08/12, is −0.5% after 24 bars.
That is not a two-out-of-three hit rate. That is a sample of three. It's enough to show what the block is reaching for and nowhere near enough to conclude anything from.
5. The default length is a trap on short data
This block's trend average defaults to 130 bars. A 130-bar average produces no value at all until 130 bars have accumulated.
A 130-bar average produces nothing until it has 130 bars behind it. On these 200 candles that leaves 71 bars where the rule can be evaluated at all — and 0 that fire.
- Price (close)
- SMA 130 — entry must be below
- No trend MA yet
BTC/USDT · 4h · Binance · 2026-08-03 → 2026-09-05
On a 200-candle pull, leaving the default at 130 leaves only 71 bars where the rule can be evaluated — and across this window it fires zero times. If you switch this block on and the backtest doesn't change at all, this is almost always why.
Either shorten the trend average to fit the data you pulled, or pull more data. Drag the slider and you can see exactly where the signals come back.
6. In the Simulator
Both blocks add buy signals only; exits still come from the base strategy. If you widen the way in, it's worth re-checking the way out — more entries means the exit rule has to handle more trades than it was tuned on.
- V-Shape Recovery Entry — an optional block that adds a buy on a sharp drop-and-recovery confirmed by a volume spike.
- Early Momentum Entry — an optional block that adds a buy on a volume-backed upturn while price is still below its trend average.