1) Yes. 2) I can rule out such issues. I know the quirks of the software I use and how to get it right. 3) As mentioned, the wheel wasn't reinvented. However, I believe I did my homework and I'm adding value. Cheers.
My question was more regarding the relationship of your system with risk premium. Any system that is a net seller of risk premium will show fantastic looking equity curves most of the time until it hits some serious drawdowns. However, once you combine your short risk premium with enough free variables, you can "prevent" drawdowns in your backtest. The "no-condition" overlay demonstrates if you are truly bringing alpha into the game or if you are simply masking risk using additional variables. If you are using the instrument that I am thinking about, the "buy-and-hold" has a Sharpe ratio of 1.8 IIRC so your residuals better have a fair bit of alpha. Anyway, send me a PM and we will chat more.
My personal experience with VIX strategies in the past few years is that they work amazingly well, almost perfectly...until they don't work at all. You also need to do an artificial backtest on VIX data (not VXX or any other ETF) with adjusted volatility for periods before 2009.
Nothing in the market is bulletproof; You can do all the backtests you want...but the market is forward-looking and part art, part science All the great traders in history have stumbled and/or eventually failed along the way. If they waited for a 100% foolproof market or system, none would have gotten off the ground.
Commonly repeated saying that doesn't mean much. What's the "art" part? Subjectively second-guessing every trade? I don't think so. If you're trading systematically then you follow the system because otherwise there is no point having a systematic approach at all. Just because (some) strategies stop working over time, it does not mean it's part "art". You can have a quantified approach to know when to stop trading.
I watch/trade the daily DOW/SPY charts...so for me, trading is definitely much more applicable 'part art and part science'; if you're a swing trader or investor...then that ratio tends to be much more logical and factual for the movements. There's alot of emotion/noise either way though in the market. It doesn't take a genius to realize that trading is truly part art, part science -- unless you're a robot scalper, who is happy or content on just picking up pennies. I trade/time the main, few major macro move(s)...which is heavily discretionary, -- kind of like what Japanese trader CIS does,
%% That sounds right XEla; especially since its a daytrading deal. Another problem/opportunity is trading/investing is ; part art,part start/part chart/ part science/part system. Mine is anyway; i use crayons on my paper printed charts; art is defined by Merriam Webster; ''as skill acquired by study,an occupation reguiring skill, one of the graphic arts.......''
%% Do not sell it; that can really goof it up. Give it away, that helped a 200 dma, but that is not near a system
Go to a retail bank and borrow 40-50k in blanco. If you have stable employment with an decent salary you should be able to do so. Where in the Nordic/Scandinavia you can do it for only 3.0-3.5% annually. No one will invest a single dime into your system without it trading 2-3 years with real money first. Even with a real money track records people will be very sceptic. It is extremely hard to raise OPM.