Why this class is so important to you

We're going to build a trading system the old-fashioned way. That is, doing it all by hand. Doing this might be the best skill you can master.

Psychology Is Your Biggest Obstacle

Trading psychology is vital. When you build strategies, you need to be honest with yourself. The goal is to create strategies you'll actually feel comfortable trading.

Profit Lab Method Overview

The Profit Lab Method overview.

The System Development Notebook (SDN)

Every trading scientist needs a notebook to record results, and that's our Strategy Development Notebook (SDN). The SDN is a fill-in-the-blank document that will help you step through the Profit Lab Method.

Three Rookie Mistakes To Avoid

Rookie mistakes you must avoid.

Leverage Your Time With Functions!

Discover how we can use functions to speed up strategy development.

Rapid Testing of Exits

A demonstration of using a function to test different exits.

Thinking in Templates

By breaking a trading concept into components, we can create a template that will help us build many different trading systems quickly.

Loading the RSDT Templates into TradeStation

This is how to load the Rapid Strategy Development Templates into your trading platform.

Key Idea Template Demo 1

Lets take a look at the Key Idea template in more detail. In this video we'll review the inputs for the Daily template.

Key Idea Template Demo 2

Lets add our Daily Template to a chart and see how we can use it to build a strategy.

What is a Key Idea?

We start the development process with finding Key Ideas. But what is a Key Idea?

Where to Find Key Ideas

Here are some of my favorite places to find Key Ideas.

Quickly and Easily Capture Key Ideas

What Is Our Key Idea?

Creating A Custom Session

Key Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Your Action Items

Building A Key Idea Database

Lets build a database to hold our Key Ideas.

KPM Ranking

This is how we'll find the best Key Ideas!

Stress Testing Part 1

Don't skip this step! We want to make sure our Key Idea is robust.

Stress Testing Part 2

Let's take a look at a few more examples of stable ranges and outliers.

Key Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Don't make these mistakes.

Your Action Items

Time to take action and build out your Key Idea database and find some robust trading ideas.

Defining Your Development Environment

Record essential information to ensure your backtesting is accurate and repeatable.

Key Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Don't make mistakes by forgetting something significant regarding your chart setup!

Your Action Items

Time to take action and define your development environment.

Defining The Baseline Strategy

We finalize our strategy code and define a benchmark for moving forward.

Integrate Key Idea Into RSDT Template

Integrate your Key Idea into the Rapid Strategy Development Templates so we can quickly test filters, stops and targets.

Key Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Don't make mistakes by allowing simple errors in your code to slip by you. Find them now.

Your Action Items

Integrate your Key Idea with the Rapid Strategy Development Templates template. This will allow you to quickly test different filters, stops, and exits.

Market Regime Filters

Market Regime filters are a way to divide the market on a macro level, and they can dramatically improve the performance of a strategy.

Testing Market Regime Filters With RSDT

This lesson demonstrates how to quickly test many regime filters using the Rapid Strategy Development Template.

When To Skip This Step

This step in the Profit Lab Method is unique. Sometimes you can skip this step, while other times, you shouldn't. Watch to find out what's going on.

Key Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Don't make mistakes by allowing simple errors in your code to slip by you. Find them now.

Your Action Items

Time for you to test regime filters on Better Breakout. Also, test regime filters on some of your other Key Ideas.

What Is Curve Fitting?

Curve fitting is a deadly phenomenon that takes down many strategy traders. It's when your strategy performs well on the backtested data but fails on the unseen or live data. Let's take a closer look to understand what curve fitting is so we can avoid it.

How to Prevent Overfitting

There are some simple steps you must take to prevent overfitting. You must keep these in mind during the development process.

Avoid Overfitting: Start With Robust Data

Always start with robust historical data. Discover what to look for and what to avoid with your historical data.

Avoid Overfitting: Limit Degrees of Freedom

Keep it simple! There is evidence that the more complex your strategy, the more likely you'll over fit. Learn what you need to do to keep your strategy simple.

Avoid Overfitting: Remember Early Stopping

Spending too much time building a single system can be a big mistake! Learn why and how to avoid it.

Avoid Overfitting: Optimization Done Right!

Performing optimization is so essential! There are many wrong ways to do this. Let me show you one way that works well. Don't miss this lesson!

What is Independent Testing?

Independent testing is a simple technique that helps me crush curve fitting. Discover how you can use it to do the same.

Independent Testing Demo: Momentum

Using our Rapid Strategy Development Template to test momentum and volume filters on our baseline strategy.

Independent Testing Demo: Time

Using our Rapid Strategy Development Template to test time filters on our baseline strategy.

Independent Testing Demo: Day-of-the-Week

Using our Rapid Strategy Development Template to day-of-the-week filters on our baseline strategy.

Independent Testing Demo: Yesterday & Zone Filters

Using our Rapid Strategy Development Template to yesterday's filter and zone filter on our baseline strategy.

Independent Testing Demo: Exits

Using our Rapid Strategy Development Template to test exits and stops on our baseline strategy.

Takeaways and Rookie Mistakes

Lots of lessons here! Let's review how to avoid overfitting your strategy using the Rapid Strategy Development Templates templates and independent testing.

Action Items

Test the filters on Better Breakout and record your results in the SDN. Highlight which filters produces the best improvements in performance.

Intelligent Construction

We'll take the best filters from Independent Testing and combine the best ones together to build our final trading systems.

Takeaways & Rookie Mistakes

Building the final system you'll want to remember not to combine all the filters. Just pick the best ones!

Action Items

Take your best filters and combine them into a final Better Breakout strategy!

Strategy Validation

Here is a review of the tests we will perform to validate our Better Breakout strategy to help ensure it will work on the live market.

Cross Validation

Data validation is a simple pass-or-fail test where we move our strategy to the out-of-sample data segment.

Cross Validation Demo

I'll perform a demo of cross validation on Better Breakout.

Data Augmentation

Data augmentation is a technique that will help us generate more trades on unseen data.

Data Augmentation Demo

This video is a demo of performing the data augmentation test on Better Breakout.

Walk Forward Analysis

Walk Forward Analysis is a powerful step that will help us determine if our strategy is likely to work on the live market.

Standalone Strategy

Before performing our Walk Forward Analysis now is an excellent time to generate our standalone strategy so we're no longer tied to our template.

WFO Demo With TradeStation

This is the first video demo of performing Walk Forward Analysis using TradeStation.

Final Validation Result

This is the second video demo of performing Walk Forward Analysis using TradeStation.

Monte Carlo Test

The Monte Carlo test is done if our strategy has passed all our validation tests and will help us determine how much capital we need to trade this particular strategy.

Monte Carlo Demo With TradeStation

This video is a demo of performing the Monte Carlo test using TradeStation.

Key Takeaways

Let's review some of the critical points when validating a strategy.

Action Items

Let's review your action items for this lesson.

Message From Jeff

Action Items

It's time to create your Seed Portfolio and aim to create at least one new strategy ever month.

Why You Need Two TradeStation Logins

Having a second TradeStation login for your live trading will prevent many headaches by helping your trades run smoothly.

Why A Remote Host is Critical

Having your trading computer hosted remotely solves so many problems. It's a must-have for live trading.

How To Track Live Trades

You need to track your live trades, and here is how to do it.

How To Use The Tracking Spreadsheet

Here is a demonstration using the provided live tracking spreadsheet.

How To Setup Your Live TradeStation WorkSpaces

Here are some valuable tips for setting up your TradeStation WorkSpaces for live trading.

How To Configure Your Chart for Live Trading

Here are the basics for configuring your chart for live trading.

Fill Logic Configuration Demo

A demonstration of how the different fill logic settings impact live trading.

How To Recover From Common Issues

I'll demonstrate some typical live issues you'll face and how to recover from them.

How To Perform A Futures Roll

Eventually, you'll have to do this! I'll show you my method for rolling over a live contract and keeping your accounts in synch.

You Need Checklists

I like to call this the two-million-dollar lesson. Don't skip this one!

Key Takeaways & Rookie Mistakes

Let's review some important aspects of taking your strategy to the live market.

Action Items

It's time to start practicing with the TradeStation simulator and creating your checklist. Let's get ready to go live!

Time to Join Fellowship!

You're ready to join our secret group of traders! Find out how to join today.

Start Your 9-5 Exit Plan

You've completed the Profit Lab Method training and are now ready to being crating your 9-5 Exit Plan.

RSDT Intraday Breakout Template

Discover the Intraday Breakout Template specifically designed to simplify the creation and testing of intraday breakout strategies.

RSDT Intermarket Template

Learn to build Intermarket Divergence trading systems with this RSDT template.

Downloads

Get the latest RSDT templates here

Setup Multiple Optimizations

Learn how to take advantage of doing multiple optimizations. Have your optimizations run when you're away from the computers. It saves a bunch of time!

Pre Qualify On Out-Of-Sample

Another time-saving tip to pre-qualify a trading idea before starting the Profit Lab Method. This technique is not recommended for the Key Idea templates.