I would like to present six major parameters of a trading system that you can use to judge their performance in live trading. Backtest your system and look for the following:
1. Maximum value of losses you get during the test of your system. Avoid any system that gives significant drawdown in a single trade, for example 20% of your trading account.
2. The maximum value of profit you get in a single trade. If there is one trade that gave you profit that greatly exceeds the average profitability of the system exclude such a trade. Probably that was just a coincidence. The maximum loss can also be a coincidence but you cannot exclude it since it can be fatal to your account.
3. The next value is the average profit to loss ratio per trade. By average I mean the sum of all the profit divided by number of profitable trades. The average loss is sum of all losses divided by the number of losing trades. You want this parameter to be around 2:1. It actually can be smaller.
4. Win to lose ratio is your next parameter. It is the ratio of total number of profitable trades to the number of losing trades. If you have profit to loss ratio 2:1 then win to lose ratio can be 40% and you can still make money with this system. Usually win to lose ratio rarely exceeds 60%, even though there can be some exceptions. I would like to emphasize that these parameters are for pure mechanical systems when trades are executed based on formal signals of a trading system. For an advanced trader who takes discretionary trades this parameter becomes more individual.
5. The maximum number of consecutive winning trades and maximum number of consecutive losing trades are our next parameters. I explain why these numbers are important. When we start trading the system and number of winning trades approaches the maximum we will expect a losing trade. Knowing these parameters will allow us to avoid overtrading by increasing our lot size because of euphoria from a winning streak. If the number of losing trades exceeds the maximum number then it's a sign that market conditions are changing and we need to adjust and test the system again.
6. The frequency of signal generation. High frequency will require executing trades very often. That can lead to discomfort and nervousness. On the other hand low frequency will lead to low profitability of the system. Which one you chose depends entirely on your personal preferences.
Based on these six parameters you can test trading systems and pick the one that suits your personality.
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