Strategy Insights

Honest base rates from every strategy ever graded on Tessen — out-of-sample, net of fees, on 6 years of data. These are facts about the past corpus, never predictions about your strategy. Get your own number free at /grade.

186
strategies graded so far
51.1%
graded F — failed at least one hard gate
+3.88bp
median expectancy per trade, after fees

Grade distribution

0
A
52
B
32
C
7
D
95
F

The win-rate trap, in our own data

Of the 31 graded strategies that win more than 60% of their trades, 9.7% still graded F. A high win rate is not an edge — expectancy after fees is. That's why the grade never uses win rate to pass a strategy.

What actually kills strategies

Share of graded strategies failing each hard gate (172 with full gate verdicts).

Positive OOS expectancy
41.3%
Clears the fee hurdle
43.6%
Robust across assets
42.4%
Survivable drawdown
30.8%
Not overfit
11.6%

Pattern base rates

Grouped by timeframe + primary entry indicator. Thin samples are labeled — small n means noise, not signal.

TimeframeEntry indicatorGradedFail rateMedian expectancy
1hrsi5747.4%+14.41bp
1hroc21(thin sample)38.1%+10.69bp
15mema13(thin sample)30.8%+3.88bp
4hrsi9(thin sample)22.2%+10.22bp
1hbb_pband8(thin sample)50%+3.84bp
15mrsi7(thin sample)71.4%+5bp
1hstoch5(thin sample)80%-7.02bp

Aggregates over all 186 strategies ever graded on Tessen (public grades + saved agents), out-of-sample, net of fees. Base rates about the past — not predictions.

Want your strategy in this dataset — and the honest answer about whether it works?