It's simple in my books: Are you making money or not - ie. does it show a profit or a loss? If a loss, the rest of the variables don't matter. You're wasting your time.
If a profit on one stock but a loss on another it could be: - Your system (I assume you are using one) doesn't work on one stock - so leave that stock alone. All stocks have "characters" - You need to optimise your system (eg: DMI(4) cross on Stock A, but DMI(8) cross on stock B) I don't look at risk:reward, etc. I look at PROFIT. I am looking at a system that sells 5-10 points after buy, with a stop loss 100 points away. The risk:reward is TERRIBLE, but the probability of making those 5-10 points is very high. Thus, profitability is high also. However....don't confuse this with risk management. That is another subject and EXTREMELY important to stay in the game. Hope this helps, Alex PS: Note on backtesting: You MUST use your common sense. Make sure the period backtested over is long enough to cover bull, bear and especially ranging markets. Some systems make great profits in bull markets, but over ranging markets and bear markets you give it all back.
