Why a Single Good Backtest Isn't Enough: A Three-Layer Validation Gate
A lone profitable equity curve may simply reflect luck after enough parameter combinations are tried. The author argues the real test is whether a trading rule's edge holds up under slightly different assumptions. Their pre-deployment gate has three layers: a parameter sweep, a monthly consistency check, and a component ablation, each with hard pass/fail thresholds. The sweep looks for a performance plateau rather than a spike at one exact parameter set, using metrics like profit factor, expectancy in R units, and a plateau score across neighboring values. The monthly check guards against results driven by a single outlier month, capping the best month's share of total profit and requiring a majority of positive months. The article illustrates the framework with a MACD divergence rule that passed the first layer but failed the second and third.
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