Inconsistent Results

[ajwalker]

Jose,
I have set up a Metastock/TradeSim simulation on ASX stocks and it basically seems to be running OK.

It has an entry trigger of
Cross(Stoch(5,3),Mov(Stoch(5,3),3,S))
together with a number of other qualifiers, and a TradeSim Trailing Stop (6*ATR(10)) exit trigger. I have set the number of records to 32,000 and do a 10,000 simulation Monte Carlo analysis.

When I run the same full (Metastock and TradeSim) simulation it gives different results each time it is run. On 4 different occasions it gave average profits of $347K, $373K, $407K and $399K respectively. The drawdown results likewise widely diverge. (On each of these occasions none of the programming or parameters in either Metastock or TradeSim were changed).

If I simply rerun TradeSim on the same Metastock file the results are near enough to being the same, although they do vary slightly.

This effectively means that if I want to do a slight change to the Metastock software and then compare the results I can have little confidence that any changes observed are significant.

I am obviously doing something wrong and have scoured the manuals and the TradeSim forum looking for answers with no luck.

Can you assist?

Regards
John Walker

[Jose]

John, there could possibly be an infinite number of reasons for the inconsistent results, but it probably has to do with TS settings. Sorry, but I can't help here.

[strw23]

How many trades does your system generate and howmany does it take? If I remember correctly the monte carlo version runs 10000 tests at once. If there is more than 10000 possible results that would account for the different figures each time. Just a guess.

Scott

[ajwalker]

Scott,
Thankyou for your response. I took this query to the other Forum (Just Starting Out) but eventually found my own answer.

I had the TradeSim function (ExtFml("TradeSim.GetSymbolLength")<=3) embedded in the Metastock code in Column A rather than in the "Filter" section. When I moved it to the correct location the problem disappeared.

Regards
John Walker :idea: