JerryT

Yes, it has worked (in Chrome) before. I just tried an export with MS Edge and it worked so I'll have to figure our what changed in my Chrome config. Are there any known add-ins that cause problems?

@Djtux, when I try to do an export from the scanner I'm getting a screen lock/freeze. Is there step I'm missing or is something up with the system? Thanks

I have support on the whitelist and I had received responses from them in the past. I'll just try again. Thanks.

But they have not. Where do I go then or how do I get their attention?

@Ophir Gottlieb is support@CMLviz.com still the place to get Trade Machine product support? I sent a couple of messages (a while ago) and have not gotten a response. Thanks.

Yes, thanks.

Right, $195. Then why does portfolio value increase by $177? Tried a few other trades with similar results, just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. My goal is to be able to calculate the performance of my trades in the same fashion as the official trades. Thanks.

Indeed I did, but I'm still not quite there... on the first (17.7%) straddle I see cash going out of $2.20x5x100= $1100 and cash coming in of $2.59x5x100= $1295 for a difference of $195. Commissions?

Is there a post or article that describes how the portfolio value number is calculated on the performance page? I must be missing something pretty basic: for the first trade of 2017, 1/17/17 SLB Straddle, I see a debit of $2.20x5x100= $1,100 and a credit of $2.31x5x100= $1,155 for a cash difference of $55, but the portfolio value increased by $177. Thanks!

Kim & Ophir, Thanks for taking the time to indulge a newbie, I think I'm starting to understand at least a bit of the principles involved. As you were describing 4-8 cycles/more data is worse the concept seemed somewhat analogous to a momentum strategy: stocks that out performed over the past six months have a tendency to outperform over the next six months, not the next six years. So both the option back-testing results and a momentum stock screen are, to borrow a phrase, a wasting asset: the FB trade may or may not work in four years (Sorry, my brain keeps gravitating to things I know). And yes, I see how model fitting is not what we are doing. Time to sign up and give this thing a spin!

I'm not suggesting anything is sleazy, I'm sure it's a great tool. I'm just trying to understand how it works and how it is applied. The sum total of my knowledge on this product is a brief fast paced webinar. I also understand the purpose of the webinar was to demo features, not be a training session on back testing methodology. So, I would like to understand how it is applied to real trading. I also acknowledge I have more background in other areas of investment and as a newbie I'm open to learning what does and does not apply to the world of options. So, a few options newbie questions: 1. A key principle of back-testing/fitting is the concept of out of sample testing: Pick a point in time, say 2010 and develop your rules/system using only the data that was available a that time (the sample data). Then, walk it forward from 2011 to present to see how it would have performed (the testing data). Not splitting the data in some fashion is almost a guarantee of fantastic results. So, does the software (or how it is generally applied) test in-sample or out-of-sample? In the webinar, I only saw in-sample which prompted the original post. (Systematic Trading by Robert Carver provides a great discussion of over fitting). 2. For a strategy to be considered robust, it generally should work across a markets and time frames. If I am developing a trend following system for futures and it only works for soybeans over the past nine months, I probably don't have much of a strategy. Unless, of course, there is a thesis to go with it: e.g. identification of something that changed in only the soybean market nine months ago. So, I would like to understand how looking at the behavior of an individual stock over a relatively short sample period translates to a robust enduring strategy. How do we know we are not being fooled be randomness? 3. In another post in this thread you stated a win rate as evidence the tool works. Great, but I would like to know more to really know the effectiveness of the tool. What is the win rate for the base strategies without application of the back tester? More importantly, how much did the back tester increase profit for winners and/or decrease the losses on the losers? 4. You also stated in another response that as a practical matter you can't look at "...even 20 occurrences". Why not? How can there be confidence in any back test with a tiny sample size. I would just like to understand this one. Thanks

Just watched the recording of the webinar...the recorded portion seemed to me to show a lot of over fitting. How is looking back to find one (or a few stocks) where a strategy worked (and many did not) going to be of any value in live trading? Maybe I missed it but I did not see a thesis as to why something would work for FB but not AAPL. Find the one person in ten that flipped heads five times and bet on him???