Path order: 5 Backtests
We backtested 5 path order strategies across crypto, US stocks. 1 beat the benchmark before correction; best +9.5 pts/yr.
Every result below is the strategy's annualized return minus an equal-weight benchmark, rebalanced daily, on the same assets and days. Strategies are charged real trading costs; the benchmark pays none. Data stops at the discovery cutoff. See the full family index, the full method and every result, or download the raw registry (JSON).
1 of 5 strategies finished ahead of the benchmark on the raw number, and 0 had an unadjusted p-value under 0.05. After one correction across all 688 tests in the registry, 0 passed, so no result here is a confirmed edge. Scored 2026-10-03, using data up to 2025-03-15. Method: see the evidence page.
How to read these results
"Ahead" means a higher return than the benchmark in this historical test, and "behind" means a lower one. Neither is a confirmed edge. A strategy is only counted as working if it survives a correction for how many strategies were tried, because testing hundreds of ideas will throw up some lucky winners by chance. Path order is grouped by the signal it trades on, not by the asset it was tested on, and every strategy here saw only data up to the same cutoff date, so none could see data another could not.
Results
- Does the ordering of crypto gains and losses matter? (crypto): ahead of the benchmark by 9.5 percentage points a year. Not statistically significant. Source: retail trading content: temporal ordering of gains losses return centroids portfolio selection.
- Does return time asymmetry identify better stocks? (US stocks): behind the benchmark by 0.1 percentage points a year. Not statistically significant. Source: retail trading content: time irreversibility lagged third moment stock returns.
- Does waiting for three losing blocks improve stock exits? (US stocks): behind the benchmark by 2.2 percentage points a year. Not statistically significant. Source: retail trading content: three consecutive losing return blocks trade exit confirmation.
- Does choosing stocks with orderly return sequences work? (US stocks): behind the benchmark by 2.8 percentage points a year. Not statistically significant. Source: retail trading content: permutation entropy financial returns stock selection.
- Does predictable return-sign ordering help crypto entries? (crypto): behind the benchmark by 62.9 percentage points a year. Not statistically significant. Source: retail trading content: return sign transition entropy crypto trading filter.