How a strategy ends up here
A backtest that looks good proves very little. It’s easy to build a chart that goes up and to the right by accident. So every strategy goes through the same six checks before it gets a verdict.
The random-entry test
We trade the same market, at the same times, with the same exits, but pick the entries at random. Then we do it again and again. If the strategy can’t beat its own random twins, the entry rules aren’t doing anything.
The coin-flip test
Same idea, applied to direction. Instead of following the strategy’s long-or-short call, we flip a coin. If the coin does about as well, the “signal” is noise.
The look-ahead audit
Some backtests quietly use information the trader wouldn’t have had yet, like a candle’s closing price before the candle has closed. It’s the most common reason a strategy looks brilliant on paper. We check the code and the data for it line by line.
Unseen years
A strategy tuned on 2021 will usually look great on 2021. We hold back years of data it was never built on and test it there. Plenty of strategies only work in the years they were designed for.
Double costs
Fees, spread and slippage eat small edges alive. We run every test again with trading costs doubled. A real edge should survive a worse fill. A fragile one won’t.
The luck check
If you try enough strategies, a few will win by pure chance. We count every variation we tried, not just the best one, and ask how likely a result this good would be from luck alone. A lucky result isn’t a strategy.
We publish the method with every result, so you can check our work.
What the verdicts mean
It failed. Usually it does no better than random entries, or its profit disappears once real costs and unseen years are added. Don’t trade it on the strength of the backtest.
It isn’t a disaster, but after realistic costs it makes about nothing. You’d be taking risk and paying fees for roughly zero.
It didn’t clearly fail, and it didn’t clearly pass. Maybe there weren’t enough trades, or it passed some checks and missed others. Not dead. Not shown to work either.
There is no “WORKS” verdict. See the FAQ for why.
Questions people ask
Who’s behind this?
Aniam. We run a strategy-testing setup every day, and we got tired of watching people pay for strategies nobody had checked. So we started publishing what we find.
Why is there no “WORKS” verdict?
Two reasons. A backtest, even a careful one, can’t prove a strategy will keep working. And if we ever found one that really did, publishing it would be the fastest way to kill it. So the best a strategy gets here is UNPROVEN.
Are you saying the person who shared it is a fraud?
No. The verdict is about the strategy, not the person. Most people share strategies in good faith, and backtesting mistakes are easy to make. We don’t name or link anyone. We describe the strategy as it was published and show our method, so anyone can check our work.
Do you trade these strategies?
We test them. We don’t recommend them, and we don’t give signals. That’s on purpose.
How often do you post?
New strategies go up as we finish testing them, and the email goes out once a week with the latest.
Seen a strategy you don’t trust? Send it in.
Paste the link to the video, thread or post, or describe the rules in a sentence or two. We test the most-requested ones first and email you when yours goes up.
Got it. Your request is in.
We test the most-requested strategies first. You’re also on the weekly list, so you’ll see it when yours goes up.
Not financial advice. Past results, including our tests, do not predict future results.
Not financial advice. Nothing on this site is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything. Every verdict here is the result of our own backtests on historical data, with the costs, controls and sample sizes shown on the page. Backtests can be wrong, data can have holes, and a strategy that failed our test may still work for someone else, or stop working for anyone. Past results, including our tests, do not predict future results. We test strategies, not people: a DEAD verdict means the rules as published did not pass our checks, nothing more. We never publish, sell or hint at a live strategy of our own. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.
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