The short answer
No target placement turned losing entries into winning ones, and none consistently beat a fixed 2R. Placing the target in front of the next major level helped M15 break-and-retest entries slightly in both years but hurt zone rejections; the next H4 zone was clearly worse on H1 entries. The entry's direction decides the result; the target mostly redistributes it.
What we tested
- Markets
- XAUUSD (gold), EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, US500, US100
- Period
- Year 1 and year 2
- Identical entries and stops; only the target changes: fixed 2R, the next D1 major level, the next H4 zone, or the next M15 level, each placed just in front of the level.
- Trades with no level in the way, or less than 0.5R of room, are skipped for the level methods.
Results
| Entries | Fixed 2R | Next major level | Next H4 zone | Next M15 level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Break-retest M15 | -0.074 / -0.102 | -0.034 / -0.075 | -0.061 / -0.082 | -0.064 / -0.097 |
| Break-retest H1 | +0.001 / -0.139 | -0.028 / -0.138 | -0.084 / -0.324 | -0.008 / -0.130 |
| Range continuation | -0.113 / -0.111 | -0.143 / -0.090 | -0.131 / -0.080 | -0.129 / -0.133 |
| Sweep rejection | -0.083 / -0.149 | -0.058 / -0.136 | -0.055 / -0.177 | -0.156 / -0.103 |
| Rejection at zone | +0.060 / -0.009 | -0.002 / -0.032 | +0.011 / -0.003 | +0.017 / -0.053 |
What it means
- Keeping only trades with at least 1.5R of room to the level changed little.
- Bank research suggests take-profit orders cluster at round numbers, so a target just in front of one may fill more often; the overall result did not change here.
Limits of this test
- Level-based targets skip some trades, so compare each column with the fixed 2R on the same trades (reported in the research file).
Frequently asked questions
Is a fixed risk-reward target better than targeting levels?
In our tests neither consistently won; on the same entries a fixed 2R was as good as targets in front of the next level, and no target method made the entries profitable.
How every test on these pages works
- Prices: the broker's own bars from an FTMO cTrader account. Fills are simulated minute by minute on one-minute bars; when one minute touches both the stop and the target, the stop is assumed to fill first.
- Costs: the broker's bid/ask spread measured by hour of day, commission per market, and the broker's own overnight swap rates for anything held past the daily rollover.
- Periods: year 1 = 24 Oct 2024 to 23 Oct 2025, year 2 = 24 Oct 2025 to 24 Oct 2026. Daily rules also use Dec 2020 to Oct 2024 ("2021-24"). Rules are written down before testing and are not tuned on the period that judges them.
- Controls: every rule is compared with entries that have no reason behind them (random sides, random days, or the same rule at fake levels), so a result has to beat chance, not just be positive.
- R is the trade's risk (entry to stop). An average of +0.10R means the average trade made a tenth of what it risked; -0.10R means it lost a tenth.
The full results for the rules RezSync Algo trades, by market and risk profile with every trade downloadable, are in the backtest report.
Related research
Research, not financial advice. These are simulated results on historical prices: they involve no real money, are produced with hindsight of the rules, and past results do not predict future ones. Costs and fills are modelled, and your broker's prices and costs will differ. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money; test on a demo account first.