How We Build & Test Strategies

We're traders and quants. We turn ideas into automated systems, prove them on real data, and show where they fail.

Most trading sites tell you a pattern works and move on. We do the opposite. We are traders and quant researchers, so we turn an idea into an automated system and run it across years of real market data, using AI alongside classic systematic methods, before we publish a word. Then we tell you where it works, where it fails, and what the edge is worth after costs. This page explains how, so you can judge the data rather than take our word for it.

We cover the markets a retail trader actually trades: forex pairs, gold and commodities like oil and silver, indices, and crypto. The same method runs across all of them, and a big part of the job is telling you which markets a given setup suits and which ones to leave alone.

The Arxum Analytics Terminal

An idea is cheap, so we don't trade on a good-looking chart. We engineer it. Each strategy is built into an automated system, the Arxum Analytics Terminal, our research platform where AI and rule-based logic run the setup across years of real market data. The Terminal trades the rules exactly as written and reports what actually happened, the winners and the losers.

• Years of real data: daily and intraday candles across forex, gold, silver, oil, and crypto, usually about eight years of history.
• Net of costs: every trade is charged a realistic spread and fee, so the result reflects what a retail account would actually keep.
• Pinned, so it holds up: each run is locked to a fixed date, so the same rules give the same result and the charts redraw exactly. Nothing is hand-picked after the fact.
• The charts are the test: each annotated trade is drawn by the same system that ran it, so the setup you see is the exact one the data traded, with the entry, stop, and target included.

What we measure

We report results in plain terms a trader can act on, not academic jargon.

• Profit factor: total money won divided by total money lost. Above 1.0 makes money over the whole run.
• Win rate: the share of trades that hit their target.
• Reward-to-risk (1:X): what one trade stands to make against what it risks.
• Maximum drawdown: the worst peak-to-trough drop along the way, so you see the pain, not just the result.
• Out-of-sample: the edge re-checked on later years the method never saw.

How we avoid fooling ourselves

Test enough combinations and something will always look good by chance. These are the guards we put on every result before it gets published.

1. Out-of-sample survival. We build the edge on the earlier years, then run it on later years it has never seen. A result that falls apart on unseen data does not ship.
2. A real mechanism. A setup has to make sense, not just fit the history. If we cannot explain why a market behaves the way the data shows, we treat the result with suspicion.
3. We show the losers. Every strategy article includes the failed trades and the markets where the setup loses. A piece that only shows winners is the warning sign.
4. No tuning to the answer. We do not quietly nudge thresholds until a number looks better. The rules are set first, then tested.
5. Clean, honest examples. The example charts are picked for how clearly they show the setup, never cherry-picked for size, and a representative loss is always included.

What we will not do

• Invent numbers, win rates, or results. Every figure traces back to an engine run.
• Fabricate reviews, ratings, or testimonials. The comment form is real; the reviews on it are from real readers or it stays empty.
• Claim live-account riches. We publish backtested research, not "I turned $500 into $50,000" stories.
• Sell a "best broker" ranking to the highest bidder. Affiliate links are disclosed, and they never decide the verdict.

Who stands behind it

Our articles are written by named traders and researchers with real track records in forex, crypto, and systematic testing, not anonymous staff. You can read their backgrounds on the authors page, and more about the site on about Arxum. When an affiliate partnership is relevant to an article, it is disclosed there.

This methodology is reviewed as our process changes. Last reviewed June 2026.