Bollinger Band Bounce: does it work?

Buying a touch of the lower Bollinger Band and exiting on a reversion toward the middle band is pitched as a simple, mechanical mean-reversion edge.

The rule we tested. Price closing below the lower Bollinger Band (20-period, 2 standard deviations) to enter long, exiting on a reversion toward the middle band, the plain version with no added stop.

• Bollinger lower-band MR on ETFs, no stop (matched control) (25 ETFs (QQQ, DIA, XLK, XLF, …)), 2005-01-04 to 2025-03-14, costs 0.05% per side: −5.6 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold across 515 trades, p=1.000, q=1.000 after correction: did not beat buy-and-hold.
• Bollinger %B reversion on large-cap crypto (18 crypto pairs (BTCUSDT, BNBUSDT, XRPUSDT, ADAUSDT, …)), 2017-08-18 to 2025-03-14, costs 0.10%–0.17% per side: −81.2 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold across 1,928 trades, p=1.000, q=1.000 after correction: did not beat buy-and-hold.

No. ETFs −5.6 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold (p=1.000, q=1.000); crypto pairs −81.2 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold (p=1.000, q=1.000). None cleared Tickfloor's Benjamini-Hochberg q<0.10 bar once weighed against every other rule tested alongside it.

This is one line in a wider check: Tickfloor's research desk has run 401 strategies against buy-and-hold, and after correcting for how many were tested (Benjamini-Hochberg, 444 tests), 0 survived. A single win-rate claim like this one is exactly the kind of result that check exists to catch before anyone trades on it.

General information only. It doesn't consider your objectives, finances or needs. Tickfloor holds no financial services licence and never places trades.

Does buying the Bollinger Band bounce work?

No. ETFs −5.6 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold (p=1.000, q=1.000); crypto pairs −81.2 pts/yr vs buy-and-hold (p=1.000, q=1.000). None cleared Tickfloor's Benjamini-Hochberg q<0.10 bar once weighed against every other rule tested alongside it.

What exact rule did Tickfloor test?

Price closing below the lower Bollinger Band (20-period, 2 standard deviations) to enter long, exiting on a reversion toward the middle band, the plain version with no added stop.

Is this financial advice?

No. This measures a publicly claimed strategy rule, not a recommendation. General information only, not personal advice.

See the full numbers on the Mean reversion, Pairs and stat arb family pages, or the full method and every result.

Other rules we've tested: Donchian / Turtle Breakout, VWAP Bounce, Turn-of-the-Month Effect.

See a full worked example, free, no account. Or start lesson 1 of the course, also free.