|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
Considering the evidence that some demo trading systems have components
intended to mislead the potential buyer, and the group's desire to learn more
about system design, I propose a new discussion thread....
To start, I was discussing with the sherriff the existence of demo disks
containing systems coded to exclude certain days from trading. I discovered
that, when the exclusions were removed, these particular days suffered enormous
losses. Apparently, the demo was designed to make the potential buyer think the
system was better than it actually was. Flat out fraud.
Although it is easy to spot this condition when you have access to source
code, you can also test for it without access to the code. Simply change the
date information forward by one day and rerun the system. If you now see large
losses on days where there were no trading the day before on the original
system, there's good indication that certain dates were excluded. You can gain
increased confidence by running the test again, this time moving the date back
one day from the original time and noticing the effects in the other direction.
I'm sure many on this forum have other techniques designed to test for other
weaknesses in trading systems. So my proposition is this: let's set up a thread
to share these techniques. The sherriff is willing to donate a trading system
for review so we can discuss methods, run tests and compare results.
This endeavor will benefit members in several ways:
1. We learn about proper system testing.
2. We learn which systems raise alarms.
3. Those pondering buying a system will know what questions to ask.
Does this seem reasonable?
- Mark Jurik
|