RSI(14) Mean Reversion on Alpaca
Buy when the 14-day RSI drops below 30 (oversold), sell when it recovers above 70 (overbought). Deployed to your own Alpaca account — no code, your assets never leave the broker.
Setup on Alpaca
- Connect Alpaca with your API keys — paper and live accounts are both supported.
- Validate any strategy against Alpaca paper first: same rules, simulated money, live data.
- Promote to the live account when paper behavior matches the backtest.
- Each deployed strategy runs in its own sleeve with independent cash.
- Guardrails check every order: price bands, notional caps, and a global pause.
The strategy
- WHEN the market opens · IF not invested AND RSI(14) < 30 · THEN buy with 98% of the sleeve
- WHEN the market opens · IF invested AND RSI(14) > 70 · THEN sell the whole position
Good for: assets that trend up over time but overshoot on the way — broad index ETFs are the classic home.
Watch out: in a persistent downtrend, RSI can stay oversold for weeks while the position keeps losing; there is no stop-loss in this template.
Strongest backtests for this strategy
| ETF | CAGR | max DD | trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAS | 26.5% | −50.0% | 20 |
| TECL | 20.1% | −64.1% | 17 |
| XLF | 12.7% | −18.7% | 20 |
| EEV | 11.2% | −56.8% | 19 |
| ROM | 10.4% | −52.0% | 15 |
| EEM | 8.8% | −14.0% | 17 |
| SOXX | 8.8% | −35.0% | 12 |
| VOOV | 8.4% | −13.1% | 17 |
Top-8 by CAGR shown of 59 tested — hindsight selection; see the full table including the losers.
Build it from blocks (or type it in English), backtest it on 5.5 years of minute data in seconds, tweak any parameter, then paper trade it on live data. No card, no broker needed to start.
Frequently asked questions
How do I automate RSI mean reversion on Alpaca?
Connect Alpaca to DeployQuant (trade & read permissions only), pick the RSI(14) Mean Reversion template or describe it in English, backtest it on your chosen ETF, allocate cash, and confirm live trading. The strategy then runs every session in its own sleeve inside your Alpaca account.
Why RSI 30/70?
They're the conventional oversold/overbought bands from Welles Wilder's original formulation. They're a starting point, not magic numbers — in DeployQuant you can drag them to 25/65 or anything else and re-backtest in seconds.
Backtests are hypothetical, computed by DeployQuant's engine on minute-resolution consolidated US market data (2021-01-04 to 2026-07-17, $10,000 starting capital, no margin, fees and slippage not modeled) and do not guarantee future results. Nothing on this page is investment advice. Live trading involves risk of loss.