What Makes a GainQuest Signal Live-Ready?

Not every profitable backtest becomes a GainQuest signal.

Making money once isn’t enough.

We care about whether a strategy is:

• Profitable
• Controlled in risk
• Stable
• Repeatable

The Metrics We Look At

Sharpe Ratio

Measures return relative to total volatility.
It answers: “Was the return worth the risk taken?”

Sortino Ratio

Similar to Sharpe, but focuses only on downside volatility.
Because upside volatility isn’t a problem.

Maximum Drawdown

The worst peak-to-trough decline during testing.
Drawdown is what makes traders abandon good systems.

But Metrics Alone Don’t Decide

A strategy doesn’t go live just because one number looks good.

We look at the full picture:

• Is performance consistent?
• Is downside controlled?
• Is there enough statistical evidence?
• Does it behave rationally, not randomly?

If the edge isn’t durable, it doesn’t qualify.

Why We Filter Before Live Trading

Backtests can look amazing due to noise.

Our filtering process is designed to remove:

• Fragile strategies
• Over-optimized systems
• Random performance spikes

Only strategies that meet our internal quality standards are deployed.

The Big Idea

We don’t optimize for the highest return.

We optimize for:

• Risk-adjusted performance
• Stability
• Repeatability

Because survival and consistency matter more than flashy equity curves.

That’s the GainQuest standard.