Research
#114Strategies, Backtested
CaseyC% Oscillator: A Smarter Mean Reversion Strategy for SP500 Traders
Jan 31, 2025 · 2 min read
Discover how CaseyC% oscillator can diversify your mean reversion strategies and improve portfolio performance in SP500 trading.
#113Market Behavior & Concepts
Market Edge: Why Markets Are Not Random (With Data to Prove It!
Jan 26, 2025 · 3 min read
Discover why financial markets are not random with data-driven insights into SP500, Natural Gas, & USD/CAD. Learn how to uncover your Market Edge and build profitable trading strategies for beginners.
#112Strategies, Backtested
Cyclic RSI: The Indicator That Redefines Market Timing
Jan 17, 2025 · 3 min read
Discover how Cyclic RSI transforms trading strategies, offering dynamic market insights and superior portfolio diversification.
#111Strategies, Backtested
OBV MACD vs. Traditional MACD: 9,216 Backtests Say You Are Asking the Wrong Question
Jan 10, 2025 · 11 min read
The OBV MACD is the MACD formula run on volume instead of price, and it gets recommended as a straight upgrade. I ran 9,216 backtests across six markets and paired every OBV variant against a price MACD with identical settings. Swapping price for volume improved profit factor in 44.4% of 3,072 matched pairs and worsened it in 53.1%. Keeping the MACD and using OBV as permission improved it in 67.3%, cut the worst drawdown in 85.7%, and cost 42% of the trades. Replace is the wrong verb.
#110Strategies, Backtested
Do Volume and Volatility Filters Actually Improve RSI(2)? 15,552 Backtests Say Mostly No
Jan 3, 2025 · 10 min read
I put 80 volume and volatility filters on Larry Connors' RSI(2) strategy and ran 15,552 backtests across 33.4 years of SPY and 19.6 years of S&P 500 futures. Every single-filter condition tested cost annual return. Most made nothing better in exchange. One filter, ATR below its 100-day median, improved profit factor in 75% of the configurations it touched and cut the worst drawdown by 5.6 points, and it is still a trade rather than an upgrade.
#109Portfolio & Risk
Ray Dalio's Holy Grail of Investing, Tested: Four Asset Classes Beat Nine Funds
Dec 27, 2024 · 11 min read
Ray Dalio says fifteen uncorrelated return streams cut your risk by 80% without cutting your return. The formula is exact and it reproduces. What fails is the shopping list — nine asset-class funds buy 3.37 independent bets, while four genuinely different asset classes buy 3.72.
#148Strategies, Backtested
ADX Indicator Tested: 8,370 Days Say It Measures Size, Not Direction
Dec 13, 2024 · 8 min read
Across 8,370 SPY days and 4,889 ES days, every ADX bucket above 15 had a higher +1% touch rate and a higher -1% touch rate than the calmest bucket, a wider move rather than an upward one. And in the forward returns, the +DI/-DI pair that is supposed to supply the direction pointed the wrong way on both instruments.
#108Strategies, Backtested
Larry Connors Double 7 Strategy: The Exact Rules, Tested 4,320 Ways on 33 Years of S&P 500 Data
Dec 6, 2024 · 14 min read
Larry Connors' Double 7, which buys a 7-day low above the 200-day average and sells a 7-day high, still works on the S&P 500: 322 trades, a 74.5% win rate and 3.5 times buy-and-hold's return per unit of drawdown. But the 7 isn't special, the famous exit barely beats a calendar, and the rule pays about a third less than it did before the book came out.
#107Strategies, Backtested
Awesome Oscillator Tested: 14,000 Backtests, and 5/34 Ranks 28th
Nov 29, 2024 · 10 min read
14,000 backtests put all four Awesome Oscillator signals through one identical harness across the E-mini S&P 500 and four index ETFs: every rule has a small positive edge on the long side, Williams' published 5/34 pair ranks 28th of the 35 tested, the exit you choose is worth 1.7 times the signal you choose, and not one of the 1,215 reliable long variants on SPY out-earned simply holding the index.
#106Portfolio & Risk
Investing Doesn’t Have to Be Hard: The Bucket System Simplified 🪣
Nov 22, 2024 · 6 min read
Learn how to use long-term, medium-term, and short-term investing buckets to grow wealth and simplify your financial strategy. 🌟
#105Strategies, Backtested
13 Best Candlestick Patterns for Trading the USDJPY Forex Pair 📊: Featuring Two Proven Strategies!
Nov 15, 2024 · 3 min read
Explore the top candlestick patterns for trading the USDJPY Forex pair. Learn how testing 13 candlestick patterns with different entry and exit strategies can reveal profitable edges.
#104Market Behavior & Concepts
S&P 500 Drawdowns Since 1871: Every Decline, How Long They Lasted, and What Actually Recovered
Nov 4, 2024 · 18 min read
Every S&P 500 decline of 10% or more since 1871, all 32 of them, measured on price: how deep each went, how long it lasted, and how long it took to recover. Six of the crises are also compared across three lenses: price, dividends reinvested, and inflation-adjusted.
#103Backtesting & Validation
Monte Carlo for Traders: I Checked Whether the Simulation Was Right. It Wasn't.
Oct 4, 2024 · 7 min read
Monte Carlo resampling is how traders answer 'how bad can this really get?' I ran it on 3,418 strategies and then did the part the simulation cannot do for you: checked the answer against what actually happened next. The simulated 1-in-20 worst case was breached 23.3% of the time.
#102Strategies, Backtested
Toby Crabel's Thrust Patterns: 17,424 Backtests. Random Entries Matched the Up Thrust on Half the Markets
Jul 23, 2024 · 11 min read
Toby Crabel's up and down thrust patterns travel with rules, working code and three parameter settings, and almost never with a measured statistic. I have now run them 17,424 ways across eight markets. The patterns are real and they do make money on stock indexes. The headline up-thrust long at its 10-bar hold also loses to random entries with the same holding period on 4 of the 8 markets tested, and the short side is a coin flip.
#101Strategies, Backtested
VIX Trading Strategy Tested: 2,520 Backtests Say the Roll Pays, Not the Timing
Jul 16, 2024 · 10 min read
Short the VIX on a spike, win three trades in four. That part is true: three published rules produce a 74.6% win rate across 4,924 days of the back-adjusted VX continuous. The average trade is $173, and the strategy earned 34.6% of what simply staying short the contract earned over the same days.