Days Reserved For Historical Testing

Hello all,
   I decided to do some testing using the option to reserve days for historical testing which I set at 30, as opposed to using the value of zero days for historical testing. I have found over the years that the default setting are usually the best, but I like to experiment with all the settings. In another post I will get in to using the 'advanced mode', but for right now let's look at the option of reserving a historical period for testing when you are setting up a new model. Of course, you begin with setting your trading strategy. Just for testing purposes, I set the account to $1,000.

 

I am going to choose the stock 'MTG' since I am familiar with it over the past year. I am going to hit 'New' then name the model MTG-1, and set the reserved historical period for testing at 30 days.

 

 

 

Then the program will ask if I want to start learning. I hit 'yes'

 

 

 

 

Then it will ask if I want to set the out if sample period to zero, which I answered 'No'

 

 

 

After the learning process is finished, then I hit the strategy performance tab and I saw this:

 

 

 

So with 30 days set for the historical period for testing, I got the results shown. Gross profit was $799.43 with 18 trades for a winning percentage of 88%, with 16 winning trades and 2 loosing trades.

 

Then I started all over again, setting the reserved historical period for testing at zero days. I started the learning period again, and when it finished I got the following results :

 

 

Gross profit was $840.71 with 14 trades for a winning percentage of 100% with 14 wins and no loses. To me, I think it is better to just leave the reserved days for historical testing at zero. But, others may have different results. This was just my experience and opinion.

 

In my next post I will get into the advanced mode where you can set your own parameters for testing. I will explain the various settings you can choose to customize your own specific model compilation. In general, I have found the default settings to be great. I just run the 5 available model types. But there have been times that manually setting some things can produce tremendous results.

 

 

 

Have a great day,

Roger