Sobering System Tests

[Herman van den Bergen <psytek@xxxxxxxx>]

Forward and out-of-sample testing doesn't have to be tedious. Just load the
maximum amount of data you have, and add an extra opt in your system tester
to step you through the years. Copy and paste the results from the System
Tester's Summery Window into Excel and make a chart. See the example attached.

You can perform this test on weekly and monthly periods as well. I modified
my Trading Rules by ANDing the year to it like this:

   (Trading Rule) AND year()=opt9

and assigned the values 1998 to 2001 (match the years to the amount of data
you have), with step 1 to opt9.

You can now study how the effectiveness of your system changes over time
with a single system test. I encourage you to do this routinely, it can be
a very sobering experience!

Have a great day!
Herman.

Attachment: Description: "AnnualPerformanceDemo.gif"