Risk warning: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 54% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Please note that Darwinex does not offer CFD services to new retail customers resident in Spain.

Skip to content
English
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

What does the Performance (Pf) Attribute tell about a trading strategy / DARWIN?

The Performance (Pf) Investable Attribute compares the risk-adjusted return of a DARWIN (maximum 6.5% monthly VaR) against the returns of 10,000 random strategies with exactly the same level of risk.

What is it?

The Performance (Pf) Investable Attribute compares the risk-adjusted return of a DARWIN (maximum monthly 6.5% VaR) against the returns of 10,000 random strategies with exactly the same level of risk and ranks them on a percentile basis from 1% to 99%.

The spirit is similar to Sharpe/Sortino ratios, but the implementation overcomes shortcomings that arguably render Sharpe/Sortino unfit to assess high-risk, high rotation trading strategies.

Pf is an excellent way to identify the statistical illusions inherent in many trading strategies offered on copy trading platforms. We refer to those strategies with a long track record, a significant number of trades, and an apparently seductive equity curve that at first glance appear investable.

However, whereupon further examination on a trade by trade level, it can be seen that the positive returns are predominantly generated by a small number of excessively leveraged trades, meaning that the return is not a consequence of a robust and stable strategy that generates consistent alpha.

The Pf score fluctuates from 0-10 and is based on the last 12 D-Periods of Experience (Ex).

Where can I see this information?? 

As with the rest of the Investable Attributes, you can access the Pf information for a DARWIN via the icons in the top right of the DARWIN profile

Snip20180912_55

or by clicking through the ["Investable Attributes" / "Pf"] tab within the DARWIN profile.

performance UYZ

Examples of Pf scores

  • Good score

This DARWIN has an excellent 9.9 score for Pf across the last 12 D-Periods - pretty much top of the class.

Good performance PME
  • Average score

This DARWIN has a Pf score of 5.1

Over time the Pf score has fluctuated substantially and suffered a steep decline from 8.45 to 3.84 before starting to recover.

Performance 5
  • Poor score

This DARWINs Performance (Pf) score has never really taken off. 

Poor performance