Just closing the loop on this. I said I'd post all the data I collected, so here it is: rank.zip
Here is my short writeup about the experiment: performance-measure.pdf. To the extent that people can look at two charts and prefer one over the other, I showed that it is possible to learn their preferences. The learned performance measure predicts preferences better than the Sharpe ratio. This may be useful to those who need an objective function to optimize while backtesting. Of course, I'm not claiming that past performance predicts future performance. It's just about learning preferences.
Here is my short writeup about the experiment: performance-measure.pdf. To the extent that people can look at two charts and prefer one over the other, I showed that it is possible to learn their preferences. The learned performance measure predicts preferences better than the Sharpe ratio. This may be useful to those who need an objective function to optimize while backtesting. Of course, I'm not claiming that past performance predicts future performance. It's just about learning preferences.