Traders' Roundtable

What should a person do about the performance spikes caused by optimization? When I started optimization, 3 was chosen as the parameter because it was relatively high and smooth. Now that I have run tests and changed other parameters, 3 has become a tall spike and values further to the left seem more attractive for robust trading. After all, the point of all of this is to develop something that will hold up in the future...

"What should a person do?"

Maybe, a person should use his accumulated wisdom plus judgement plus experience to make a difficult decision in the face of contradictory information and uncertainty?

Or maybe a person should read the first Market Wizards book, interview #6 (p.167):

Q: What is the most important advice you can give the average trader?
A: That he should find a superior trader to do his trading for him, and then go find something he really loves to do

I suppose "what should a person do" is a poor choice of words. I just posted this for discussion, reflection, etc...

Yup,

I've seen similar things - if you "optimise" one or two parameters at a time, (e.g. entry conditions, then portfolio filters, then exits) the system can get quite highly tuned to selection you've already made.

Then when you revisit the earlier parameters, you find them much more sensitive.

I'm not clever enough, or experienced enough to understand the mathematical reason - but I've realised its something to beware of.

On a statistical basis, what can you do except go for the most robust parameters ? Try un-optimising some of the others & see if it gets better.

Ideally, we'd keep track of every test we made, how it contributed to the result and how it impacted other elements of the system.

Dave