I hate to burst your bubble, but that attitude will get you into very big trouble. Your system is useless until first proven robust in a number of market conditions. Further, in the time period you tested you could have thrown a dart at a list of stocks and made a good profit.
Quote from ChaosNSX: Might have some similarities, you even said it was a great month for longs, so why not use a bullish strategy. That was my point. The MF Mechanical Investing strategies were all taken during the bull run. That's why they're skewed. Your answer presupposes you already knew that April would be bullish. You can either like the system or not I just liked the results and wanted to share them. Yet again, this is similar in thinking to the MIs over at Motley Fool. They l-o-v-e the results. I lurked the forum to see if there was any tooth in what they were doing (I don't think there is), and there was one guy who did nothing but post new screen after new screen of higher and higher results. But could they attain them in real life. No way. But they loved their backtest results. As for the "you could have stayed in the trades longer" statement, yeah say that after the fact, I could look at your trades and find many that kept running too that you missed the top on. Don't be greedy take the profit and bank it. You could apply stops to this system, or keep exits discretionary. I let my winners run. Sure I don't sell at the top. I sell after they turn, but not before, most times. That's different than cutting the profits short before their time. 10% is more than adequate when your in a bull with only one leg, and if you look closely you have to get out of one trade before you reentered another. Here's a hypothetical: 11% wouldn't be better? I'm not convinced 'cause my thinking is that (assuming the position still has reason to have legs) if I'm out at 10%, I'd then have to find another, just as good or better, opportunity for my capital. But why should I, if I have good reason to stay where I am (I swing from a few days to several months)? In conclusion its just a system I toyed around with, and I wanted to share the results because I thought they were interesting. If you got anything better to say or share, share it, if your just going to ridicule, you can shove it. You thought I was ridiculing you? I wasn't. Just pointing out what I thought were missteps in your criteria. I thought I *was* sharing. You did say in your first post that all comments were welcome. Now you say that they're not. ...And another thing look at Jay's post I did. Entering on pullbacks, I know, has more to it than the criteria of a 6% drop alone. You have to have a reason why you'd think it's a pullback and not a freefall, no?
Just trying to be helpful. What you have is a start in the right direction...as I buy weakness in a number of forms...but you need to nail the other 10 months. Trading the hard right edge, you have no idea when the market is going to roll over on you. So what are you going to do when your uptrend strategy turns into a downtrend and you are holding 10 positions bought on weakness? Aye, there's the rub.