Thanks for your detail, but normally (1) is really more reliable than (2), but it is hard for an individual to do (1) with multiple future contracts. Even with mini futures, normally it really needs like 10 mini futures in market at the same time to create a pair trading.
Quote from sidm:
(1) Statistical arbitrage is based on the premise that two assets' prices can be correlated, and that this correlation persists over time.
(2) Momentum trading is based on the premise that prices of a single asset can be auto-correlated (price tomorrow is correlated with price today), and that this auto-correlation persists over time.
Either premise can be true SOME of the time, but neither is true ALL of the time.
If market conditions are such that premise (1) is more true than (2), then Ernie Chan will be right. Else, he will be wrong.
What sort of conditions are holding these days? Very hard to tell without conducting some sort of empirical study.
Markets are living, breathing organisms. They are composed of real people who have free-will after all. So things change constantly. So it is stupid to make such blanket statements like one being better than the other. There are just too many variables involved to make fair comparisons.
BTW, don't be bummed about MATLAB being expensive. You don't need MATLAB for trading. Combination of Python + Numpy + Matplotlib is a much better choice (all open source).
Also, people make statistical arbitrage to be way too complicated with concepts of co-integration, ADF tests etc. Most of the advanced statistics is highly questionable since it is based on assumption of Normal distribution, which is a total nonsense in context of markets.