Because some were not able to stick to the rules. Some were second guessing if I remember well. Or do you mean to say: some failed AFTER the turtle experiment and why was that? Well THAT might have to do with entrepreneurial skills. When you want to attract money for example, a smooth talk, a convincing personality and so on are very usefull. But with trading it has nothing to do. I know of some people with excellent entrepreneurial skills who failed miserably in the markets. When you have to do with people all those above mentioned characteristics are very uselfull to put things to your hands. But markets are not impressed by "entrepreneurial skills" they are not impressed, they sweep you away just as easily.
I never said markets were impressed by entrepreneurial skills. I was pointing out why people with the same systems could see some win and some fail.
Most people who do analysis on equity curves do understand the relationship of the "signal" and the "financial management". They are parts of the same equation that represents the equity curve. Usually people use families of log curves as well. Check out some of those for more personal incite.
Jez. You would be how good random entry actually is. Run a few tests. I would post some here but on the work computer at the moment. Hit rate has nothing to do with size of gains or losses. Average win size in relation to average loss size is the payoff factor. But you already knew that. So I must have missed your point?
I agree wholly. The reason I mentioned W% is because its the only way to quantify or see if there is any edge in the entry. Of course there doesn't have to be an edge in the entry for a method to have a positive expectancy.
============= I have seen that view expounded before, but never with any evidence that it is true... is there any evidence? The thought that random or worse entries can be tortured to produce winning trades is a glaring invitation to over optimization.
I've tested random entry myself, though it was years ago, when i was first getting started in systems design. The results suprised me. Do you have Amibroker? Its pretty easy to do it with Ami I think. I can run a test for you but will probably have to wait until the weekend, very busy this week. How so? If you run a system over the S&P500 for example, and say RandomEntry:=0.2 Or however it was (cant remember the code) which means enter every one in five stocks alphabetically starting from the test start date and then put in your money management and your trade management (stops, exits) and then see the results. It will suprise you. Though it shouldn't. The only reason trend following systems make money is the fact that they cut their losses and let their winners run. And this is all to do with stops and exits. And nothing to do with the entry. Obviously, the situation is different with short term mean reversion, as you are relying on that high win% as you don't let winners run as much.