The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies, 2nd Edition

Foreword

My relationship with Bob Pardo goes back to 1996 when he approached my firm, DUNN Capital Management, in search of trading capital for his XT99 system. After some extensive system evaluations, we entered into an agreement to help research, develop, and trade Bob’s XT99 for Bob, DUNN, and our clients. I am pleased to report that this arrangement has proved beneficial to all parties and that it is still going great guns. When Bob recently asked if I would write the foreword for this second edition I assured him that I would be more than delighted to do so.

Because of my scientific background and training we have always viewed system design and development as a diligent application of statistical analysis of the performance of trading models and of their test results. Accordingly, we were very pleased to find that many of these features were used in developing the XT99 model platform and that it was so amenable to further testing and fine-tuning.

When my colleagues and I had the opportunity to read the first edition of this work, we were particularly interested in Bob’s presentation of the virtues and benefits of using the walk-forward method to guide system development.

I am aware that many consider the first edition of this book to be a classic. Generally speaking, it is pretty difficult to improve upon a classic, but in this case it was necessary. As Bob outlines in his preface, to say that our world of computing, trading, and money management has changed since 1991 when ...