This year, 13th May to 12th June, the Dow beat Nasdaq & SPX. That a whole month. The reason being, when we had the breakout in April this year, the Dow lagged, then decided to compensate with a strong catchup. DOW Black line, Nasdaq green, SPX blue line.
What does that chart look like if you pull it back to March 23rd and extend it to today? Asking for the friend in my head.
I seriously doubt you are going to find a specific factor that correlates to longevity of a day trading system, unless its proximity to an exchange. There are anomalies that pop up and can be exploited until they cease to exist. That's all.
Anyone ever heard a doctor saying "Oh no no I cannot help you my system changed, medecine changes all the time" Or a retired doctor on a plane going "ok so here are the symptoms, I have these drugs here..." "Oh no no sir your system probably does not work, health changes all the time" Or a fucking lawyer in court "Ok so here are the laws, here is the evidence, here is what we did on previous similar cases etc" "No no we are rejecting your defense no 2 cases are the same the court changes all the time, you're not a lawyer anymore you might have been 6 months ago but the justice system changes all the time, let's ask a random hobo his opinion on the case so we have a neutral view" Clearly the market is abstract and we end up with clowns that make absolutely no sense because they cannot figure it out. To them it's mysterious and magical. Wouldn't surprise me if half the losers arguing here were desperate for someone while showing them examples to give them an edge because they're too dumb & lazy to find one themselves. Don't fall for that trap.
A system is fixed, market behavior changes. Especially on smaller time frames. The dynamicity of a market with hundreds of millions of participants is not of the same nature as a fixed law made by a few men. Medical practitioners systematically prescribed Thalidomide for over 10 years for morning sickness and we all know they don't do that anymore. Here is a list of a few more systems that Doctor's are no longer prescribing/trading because of market changes/people's health - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs BTW, laws change all the time as well. Your analogies suck. Find new ones. It's my observance that most trader's on ET do not trade systematically with with fixed rule-sets. Most seem to have some methodology with a bit of shoot from the hip, fix on the fly, trading in the zone sprinkled on top. This is especially true for the few that are intra-day traders. Therefore, the OP is not really going to get a qualified answer to the simple question he is asking. For myself it's pretty strait forward. If a system earns more than it's allotted drawdown before the drawdown is hit, it's a great system. With small time frame systems (trades from 2 seconds to 15 minutes) I have never had a system last over 1 year.
%% Nothing like a chart start or end on 12th ; have to look hard for that ..............................................
Trend-following systems, by far the most robust, consistent and profitable trading strategies ever devised by traders, have been making money for the last 800 years. Those interested can read How to Make a Fortune in Bull, Bear, and Black Swan Markets by Michael Covel, for instance, they will see the empirical proof.