# Moon Phases Strategy Moon Phases Strategy is a strategy on [Vela](https://vela.luxalgo.com/chart), our next-generation charting platform, written in Pine Script®. A calendar-driven strategy that times entries to the lunar cycle, buying full moons and selling new moons by default, with conditions you can invert or switch to higher/lower-moon trend-following. The cycle is approximated at 29.53 days, so higher timeframes keep the phase math honest. A clean sandbox for testing whether lunar seasonality holds on your market. - Indicator in the LuxAlgo Library, by LuxAlgo, published Oct 29, 2021. - Access: free. - Concepts: [Astro Cycles](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/astro-cycles/) (primary) - Open on Vela: https://vela.luxalgo.com/chart?pineScriptCodeId=cmpwn3twj005dvhsgnsn48daj - Page: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/moon-phases-strategy/ **Moon Phases Strategy** trades the calendar instead of the tape: it approximates the lunar cycle at 29.530588853 days from a reference new moon and opens or closes positions as each phase arrives. It is the house take on [astro cycles](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/astro-cycles/), less an endorsement than a rigorous way to test whether lunar timing survives contact with your market. Real lunar cycles are not perfectly periodic, so the strategy is most coherent on higher timeframes, where small phase drift stops mattering. ## How to Trade the Moon Phases Strategy? - **Default cycle**: buy the full moon, sell the new moon; both conditions can be inverted outright to the classic formulation, buying the new moon and selling the full moon. - **Higher/lower moons**: a trend-following variant buys when price at a lunar event exceeds its level at the previous one and sells on lower moons; flip it for a contrarian read that fades those moves. - **Independent conditions**: the buy rule and sell rule are set separately, so the long trigger and the short trigger can follow different lunar logic. Because phase events arrive on a fixed rhythm regardless of price, judge it the way you would any of the [time-and-seasonality tools](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/family/time-seasonality/): across long histories and many cycles, never on a handful of trades. ## Moon Phases Strategy Settings - **New Moon Reference Date**: the anchor from which all lunar cycles are counted; every phase event is projected forward from here. - **buy** (default Full Moon): the lunar rule that opens long positions. - **sell** (default New Moon): the lunar rule that initiates shorts. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Does the moon actually move markets? There is no settled mechanism, and this strategy does not assume one. Its value is discipline: fixed, unambiguous entry dates make lunar timing easy to test honestly, and the periodic structure complements other analysis rather than replacing it. Date-driven cousins like the [Buy & Sell Calendar](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/buy-sell-calendar/) apply the same idea to ordinary calendar dates. ### What should the New Moon Reference Date be? Pick a documented new moon that sits near the start of the period you want to study, so projected phases line up with the cycles your test covers. The anchor matters more on lower timeframes, where small drift compounds faster. ### Does the Moon Phases Strategy cost anything? No. The strategy lives in the free LuxAlgo Library. Backtest it in Quant, our coding agent, straight from this page to see how the default and inverted conditions compare on your symbol. You can also copy the source code from this page and run it anywhere Pine Script® runs. ## Related indicators - [Astro Cycles](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/astro-cycles/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/astro-cycles.md - [Momentum Cycle Sentry](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/momentum-cycle-sentry/) (Dominant-cycle Detection): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/momentum-cycle-sentry.md - [Fixed Time Cycles](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/fixed-time-cycles/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/fixed-time-cycles.md - [Long-horizon Calendar Cycles](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/long-horizon-calendar-cycles/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/long-horizon-calendar-cycles.md - [Asia Sweep Reversals](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/asia-sweep-reversals/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/asia-sweep-reversals.md - [8AM 1H Range & Breaks](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/8am-1h-range-breaks/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/8am-1h-range-breaks.md - [8am Road Map Zone](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/8am-road-map-zone/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/8am-road-map-zone.md - [Ultimate Opening Range Breakout](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/ultimate-opening-range-breakout/) (Time, Sessions & Seasonality): markdown at https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/ultimate-opening-range-breakout.md --- Source: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/moon-phases-strategy/ (LuxAlgo Library). Free to use with attribution: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/license/