We test what retail traders believe — with code and statistics. Every study codes the strategy into precise rules, runs it on years of tick data with real costs, and publishes the out-of-sample result and an honest verdict.
Each teardown takes a popular strategy, codes it into precise rules, and runs it on years of tick data with real costs and slippage — then tests it out-of-sample. No cherry-picked charts. Pick a study to see the method, every variation tested, and the verdict.
He markets $874K this year at a ~64% win rate — “just copy me.” So we coded his exact ICT strategy, tested all 15 variations on 7 years of NQ/ES tick data with real costs, and ran it out-of-sample.
Does trading the first-hour range break on the Nasdaq actually pay — after costs, out-of-sample? We coded it, tested seven years, and added a filter that matters.
The 10–11am ET "silver bullet" window is everywhere on YouTube. We're running it through the same test. Verdict published when it's done.
Do "order blocks" actually mark levels price respects, or is it hindsight? A pre-registered test on years of data — results soon.
Give a strategy enough freedom and you can always make it look brilliant on the past — you keep adjusting it until it fits the history in front of you. That isn't finding an edge; it's memorizing the answers. The only way to know whether a strategy learned something real is to test it on data it has never seen.
That is out-of-sample testing, and the idea behind it is simple: hide some of the data, and save it for a final test. You build and tune the strategy on all the rest. Then, at the very end, you run it once on the part you saved. If it still works on data it has never seen, that is strong evidence of a real edge. If it falls apart, the strategy was never real — it was just fitting the past.
Every Telonics study withholds a block of recent history as a true out-of-sample test, and publishes how the strategy performed on it. A cherry-picked chart, by contrast, is one hundred percent in-sample: it only shows the trades that already worked.
Every real trade costs money, and those costs are the difference between a backtest that looks good and one that would actually work. There are two:
Commission is the fee your broker and the exchange charge every time you place a trade. It's a fixed amount per contract, and you pay it twice on every trade — once to get in and once to get out. Small on its own, but it adds up fast across thousands of trades.
Slippage is the gap between the price you wanted and the price you actually got. In the split second between your order being sent and it filling, the price can shift a little against you. Usually a tick or two, but it's real money, and it gets worse when the market is moving fast, around news, or right at the open.
So we don't skip them. Every Telonics figure is calculated after costs, not before: each simulated trade is charged real commission plus a full tick of slippage on both entry and exit — the same friction you'd hit in a live account. When you see a return anywhere that doesn't mention costs, assume it hasn't survived them.
The metrics and concepts we publish, in plain English. If you followed a link to get here, your term is right below.
Every strategy we sell has a study behind it. Add them to your TradingView charts and trade.
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