How to Become Profitable (algo-trading for beginners)

1. **Backtest/optimize everything you possibly can, across every market you possibly can, until you find something that seems to work out-of-sample (new/unseen time period that you never used for tweaking/optimizing).** Don't use the closed commercial algos - they are usually overfitted by their sellers. Also b careful with strategies and markets that suffer from heavy slippage and other execution problems. 2. **Validate through many cycles of walk-forward analysis (WFA) on historical data. If it passes this most important reality check, you probably have an edge.** After optimizing/tweaking on a certain period ("Optimization-Period"), you will need to decide what setup to choose and test on the "Future-in-the-Past" - a period that follows the "Optimization-Period". You will need a selection criteria. For example, a setup that works well on the period that precedes the Optimization-Period, plus some problematic periods (stress tests), plus additional tests like Monte Carlo, etc. The goal is to see what selection criteria consistently provides a setup that works best on the "Future-in-the-Past". When you eventually trade live, that period will be your real future. 3. **Move your WFA process to the present. "Future-in-the-Past" will be the real future now.** Trade it on a small live account and keep comparing the live results with their corresponding backtest results every day or two. Live performance and backtest performance must reasonably match. \* Disclaimer: * I am a profitable trader with a publicly accessible verified track record. My words are backed by real results. * This post will probably be attacked and down-voted by “gurus,” “mentors,” “course sellers,” “psychologists,” (some o f them are on this sub too) and losing traders with inflated egos. Ask them to show a verified track record to back up their claims. The description inside their link must include their Reddit username - the only way to prove that track record is really theirs. * After 12 years of experience and trying every possible path, I am convinced that this path can lead a retail trader to consistent profitability. Other paths may work for great geniuses - I don’t know. But I have never seen a profitable verified account from a trader who did not follow some variation of this path. * The core idea is simple: a strategy that has gone through proper WFA and demonstrated statistically significant profitability has an enormously higher chance to truly work on a live account than a strategy that has never gone through that process.