Data Quality Matters

I did an analysis of the optimal trading strategy for Palladium futures using Barchart data. Previously, using free data, I had found that we should make trading decisions based on very short periods of past prices. For example we might go long (short) if prices broke out above (below) the previous day's high (low), or maybe the high or low of the previous two days. Now I find that the optimal strategies use periods of 7 to 18 days for breakouts. This shows that using good quality data really matters in trading, and not just a little bit. Using one day breakouts would actually lose money over the last five years of data that I tested. I lost money on all the Palladium trades I previously made... though four trades is not a large sample.

At the moment Palladium is in a winning long trade, but I am reluctant to go long at this point. So, I put in a short trade which will activate if the market reverses.

I also found out today that Barchart has past ASX 200 futures prices. I don't know if these are as high quality as their US futures data.  I will download them next.