Hello all. I hope someone with more experience or a Equis person will answer this question ASAP.
Initially I thought the Enhanced System Tester is the perfect tool to compare the 26 built-in systems and select the "best" one for a particular stock. However, after carefully examining the test results lately I have found numerous errors. Here is the latest obvious example:
Lets take Alpha Natural Resources on NYSE, symbol ANR. Select the last three years, 01/01/2006 to 12/31/2008. For the other options of the test I leave them mainly at default except using $15 commision per trade and set it to invest $10,000 each time (position). Also, selecting just Long trades.
When the test is done with all 26 systems order the results by Net Profit. Towards the end is listed Fractal Trading 1 with information that according to the test there were only 4 trades, all of them loss trades.
However, when loading the ANR chart with the last 750 periods and displaying the last 250 periods in the screen just in those last 250 periods (approx a year) you can clearly see more than 4 trade signals just in 2008, and few of them are profit trades. There is clear mismatch between the trade signals the expert is showing and the trades actually recorded in the Positions section of the test.
So this raises the question about the validity of the test results. The profit while applying Fractal 1 for the last three years is surely bigger than the stated -34% in the test.
And this also raises doubts about other test results too. What I liked about the EST was the ability to quickly test a lot of systems on a lot of stocks. If I doubt the results and do the math manually it becomes hell of a job...
Any thoughts please? Thanks.
EDIT: Changing some of the settings (button More) while setting up the test I managed to get better result. I changed trade execution to close prices and without any wait (0 bars). But still the Positions section does not show all the trade signals and that means the end results are not completely correct as if following the trade signals. Am I doing anything wrong?
Initially I thought the Enhanced System Tester is the perfect tool to compare the 26 built-in systems and select the "best" one for a particular stock. However, after carefully examining the test results lately I have found numerous errors. Here is the latest obvious example:
Lets take Alpha Natural Resources on NYSE, symbol ANR. Select the last three years, 01/01/2006 to 12/31/2008. For the other options of the test I leave them mainly at default except using $15 commision per trade and set it to invest $10,000 each time (position). Also, selecting just Long trades.
When the test is done with all 26 systems order the results by Net Profit. Towards the end is listed Fractal Trading 1 with information that according to the test there were only 4 trades, all of them loss trades.
However, when loading the ANR chart with the last 750 periods and displaying the last 250 periods in the screen just in those last 250 periods (approx a year) you can clearly see more than 4 trade signals just in 2008, and few of them are profit trades. There is clear mismatch between the trade signals the expert is showing and the trades actually recorded in the Positions section of the test.
So this raises the question about the validity of the test results. The profit while applying Fractal 1 for the last three years is surely bigger than the stated -34% in the test.
And this also raises doubts about other test results too. What I liked about the EST was the ability to quickly test a lot of systems on a lot of stocks. If I doubt the results and do the math manually it becomes hell of a job...
Any thoughts please? Thanks.
EDIT: Changing some of the settings (button More) while setting up the test I managed to get better result. I changed trade execution to close prices and without any wait (0 bars). But still the Positions section does not show all the trade signals and that means the end results are not completely correct as if following the trade signals. Am I doing anything wrong?
