It's not about optimising OR curvefitting, it's about optimising AND not curvefitting. True optimisation takes into account the tolerance (what the system CAN do) and specifications (what the system MUST do and it's not only about TRUE performance - in the future not in the past - there are also constraints) of the system, whereas curvefitting doesn't take into account neither one or the other, not even performance since it is not TRUE performance - in the future, which means inferential probability and not only descriptive statistics - but only performance in the past (only descriptive statistics). To do inferential probability requires in fact to eliminate as far as possible any curvefitting, if not so inference about performance in the future risks just to be wrong and so useless.
Typically curvefitting gives performance under a conditional probability see the other thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...hlight=conditional+and+probability#post462625 Re: RSI 25 Explosions System? 88% perhaps but what is not said is that it is a rather a CONDITIONIAL PROBABILITY noted traditionally P(A | B) (probability of A knowing B) where B is the market context or global trend that is to say one must know before if the market is globally bullish or Bearish; let's remark that it could also be sideways but let's simplify for the demo then I will suppose that P(B)=1/2 since I don't have any other knowledge on the design of the system. What we really need to know is P(A) and not only P(A | B). Thanks to Bayes Axiom on conditional probability we know that: p(A and B) = p(B) * p(A/B) (also = p(A) * p(B/A) but not used) so that p(A) = 0.5 * 0.88 = 0.44 = 44% is an estimation of the real probability of this system
Optimizing and curvefitting is only way to make more than average (25%) return. Robust system for all markets is only for ordinary return. After some time that optimized sytem will stop working when market change in the future, and you have to find new one, so, test, test, test. Example, es basically a choppy market compare to currency which is trending market last year, but may change in the future. Now, if you enter breakout in currency there is a good probability of success, but not es where many false breakout happens. So, you need different systems for currency and es. Every market has her personallity.
Please let me be clear. I think that backtesting is important. I just happen to think that Pardo's book is worthless. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I am going to keep a log of the systems results that I started the thread about. 3/29 - 4/13 "Pressure Cooker Buy" 10 trades -$324.00 "Pressure Cooker Sell" 15 trades +$1431.00 ------------- 1107.00 comm -50.00 -------------- 1057.00 I wish I could cut and paste %`s, max profit/loss and drawdowns but AIQ doesn't allow you to do that. I had intended to trade long or short based on the direction of the SPX (intermediate term) but it seems that a simultaneous long/short approach may work OK...time will tell