Ran a Monte Carlo simulation on our mean reversion engine to answer one question: does it actually pick better stocks than random?
u/PracticalOil9183 ·
Reddit — r/algotrading
· April 14, 2026 at 00:32
· ⬆ 18 pts
· 💬 5 comments
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Summary
The author presents validation results for a mean reversion stock selection engine, comparing its performance to random selection via a Monte Carlo simulation.
The thesis is that the engine possesses statistically significant stock selection skill, separate from market timing, as demonstrated by outperforming 98.6% of random picks on out-of-sample data from 2016-2025.
Quality assessment: Well-researched DD. The author provides rigorous statistical validation (Monte Carlo, p-value, out-of-sample testing), acknowledges the illustrative nature of some charts, includes transaction costs, and provides a GitHub link for reproducibility.
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https://preview.redd.it/j3l8oz5ew1vg1.png?width=1886&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b980fe6ce9f11a3a8db3bb56afda436b61f4254
On each of the 8,150 out of sample signal dates, we replaced the engine's pick with a random stock from the same universe and held it for the same number of days. Did that 10,000 times.
Result: the engine's stock picks outperform 98.6% of random selections. p value of 0.0137.
The engine wins 67.1% of trades. A random picker on the same dates wins 57.5%. That 10 percentage point gap is pure stock selection skill, not market timing.
Important context: the equity curves on the chart are illustrative only, they use simplified monthly compounding to visualize the comparison. They are not portfolio returns. The actual constrained portfolio (max 5 positions, transaction costs included) turned $10K into $99K over the same period. The rigorous outputs here are the percentile rank and p value, not the dollar amounts.
All numbers are out of sample only (2016 to 2025). The engine never saw this data during development. [https://github.com/signal-validation/mean-reversion-validation](https://github.com/signal-validation/mean-reversion-validation)