|  DEC 1989

How to evaluate a commodity trading system by Kent Calhoun

How to evaluate a commodity trading system by Kent Calhoun The percentage of profitable trades, the average profitable trade, the average losing trade, the maximum consecutive losing trades, the average profit per closed trade, the largest winning and losing trades, the number of profitable buys and sells, the average number of days in losing and winning trades, and the equity return on margin are not what I use to determine whether a commodity trading system can be traded. Just because a system ""makes"" money doesn't guarantee you will make money. I tested 60 systems that ""made"" more than $ 1 million after commissions and slippage over six years, but discovered that 47 lost the $100,000 beginning equity at some time during the six-year trading period. Maximum equity drawdown determines the ""tradability"" of a commodity system, not profits. System developers initially defined maximum equity drawdown as the worst amount of equity drawdown (i. e., reduction of the equity in your account) on a close-to-close basis. Eventually, an intraday maximum equity drawdown came to be used. This gave a more realistic worst-case scenario. I'd say neither of these maximum equity drawdown figures is adequate.

by Kent Calhoun