Systems page performance number used Discussion

sort systems by abs.gain instead of Gain, because gain can be manipulated by withdrawals and deposits

The percentage gain number used with sorting systems in the system page is the one that can be manipulated (intentionally or not) by adding and withdrawing funds. A good example of (unintentional) manipulation is my system4 which shows a profit of 2000%+ while the real profit is probably 10 times less. The reason for the problem is that the system was trading for a few months where i made a little over double what i had to begin with, then withdrew half the account to set up another system. This withdrawal is shown as a sudden huge gain in the stats for some weird reason.


see the numbers here https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/system4/4036


i would rather have the abs. gain used in the systems listing to avoid systems like my system4 to show up way too high in the list. I would think abs.gain is a closer estimate of true system performance.

Regards,

Dennis Fantoni aka pinball

Dennis, we will add the possibility to sort either by absolute gain or cumulative one.

Both gains should be looked at, as both are an indicator for 2 different growths:

The cumulative method measures the success of a trading system disregarding any dollar values. Meaning that it isn't affected by withdrawals nor deposits, and keeps accumulating your gain. This is an important measure as to the success of a trading system. It actually tells you the gain someone would have accomplished with the system if he were to deposit only once, at account inception.

The absolute method measures the success of a trading system based on the amount of profit made in dollar value. Meaning it's showing you how well did the trader position his funds during his trading.

So applying it to your account, we can clearly see that if someone would have invested at account inception, he would be up now 2299.35%.

Since you did deposit and withdraw during the lifetime of your account, your absolute gain in terms of currency is 210.67%.

Hope that's clear and thanks for the suggestion!

I must admit i did not think i had a performance so strong that $100 invested at inception would turn into a $2299 balance as of now. I will try to look into the matter and see if that is in fact the case. It does seem very odd that almost all the gain happened the same day - a day where i also transferred money out of the account. However, i cannot rule out the possibillity of having had huge unrealized profits before the withdrawal, and then closed lots of profitable positions to make cash for the withdrawal. If that is the case, my system4 have behaved much better than i thought. I would've guessed i only made a few hundred % on that one. Will get back with more info when i have checked my numbers. Sorry if i pointed to an error where no error is.