A couple of observations, from my experience in Quant work.
First, remember ... I run Non-Correlated Strategies, to help me control my risk (
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ading-journal-that-shows-profit.337303/page-2 ). So honestly? I'm what a colleague calls "
Strategy Agnostic". In other words, I don't really think any positive expectancy strategy is better than any other strategy. It's more of a matter of what the strategies actually
are and how they work together.
In other words, I have a strategy that annualizes 7.0%, but it's Sharpe Ratio is 1.1 and it's Sortino Ratio is 2.54. It's maximum drawdown is less than 1x it's annualized rate. Rock solid. But it doesn't annualize a lot. So is that a 'bad' a strategy? How would we define that? "
Well, I want to make a lot of money!". Ok. Fair enough. But on the way to that goal? People find that drawdown (
when a strategy pulls back for a short time) messes with their head and their discipline, and psychology. So if they want a low drawdown process / strategy? Then this might serve.
But then again, I can take that strategy (which is very simple to run), and then mix it with a strategy that Annualizes 24%, but with deeper 12% dradowns.
Then, when I run both of them together? The sum total, is that it's annualizes more like 13%, with very, very low drawdowns. The second strategy pulls the first strategy UP in and by mixing them, the first strategy minimizes the drawdowns from the second strategy.
That's just an illustration though. The point? Is that strategy is important to me,
only insofar as how I can use it in conjunction with other strategies, and the results of the combination of those strategies.
So I don't really believe in a 'strategy being better' than any other strategy.
There's a second point ...
And that's what we refer to as "event count".
Making sure that the strategies? Have a proper amount of history behind them, for the time-frame they are trading.
For example ... that first strategy I mentioned? It's balanced every month, and I have history on it, as to how it performed, back to 1998. That's 252 occurrences, over 21 years. That gives me a lot of confidence.
I have another strategy, that operates 4 or 5 times inside a month. I have over 594 different occurances, to let me know what it does, over 11 years.
So my point? Is to be very critical of any data, that doesn't go back at least 11 years, with plenty of occurances, to give you some sort of idea how it performs in different types of markets.
Third?
I'd be very careful of anyone who says: "Always go with a high accuracy system" with no thoughts of the above context.
I'm not the only Quant out there, God knows. There's a million of us, and I'm nothing special. Clifford Assness of AQR Capital also speaks publicly, and you'll find that he has similar thoughts to myself.