Paper portfolios SIMULATED
Six books over the same screen, the same prices and the same costs, differing only in their rules. No money is invested.
No money is invested. These are hypothetical results. Six books run over the same screen, the same prices and the same frictions, differing only in their rules, so that the effect of each rule can be seen rather than assumed. Each starts from a notional $100,000, rebalances weekly (Monday), except book F every 4 weeks, and pays 40 basis points per side; a stop exit pays a further 75 because real stops gap through in thin small-caps. The path column shares one vertical scale across all six rows, so the shapes can be compared directly. Watch the friction column before the return column — this screen turns over its holdings many times a year, and at that rate the cost of trading may be the whole story rather than a rounding error. Each book’s name links to its own page — what it holds, at what size, and where every stop sits. Book A is the control — if the cleverer books do not beat it, the cleverness is not earning its keep. Simulated results still omit what hurts real traders most: the market moving against a real order, taxes, and the nerve to follow a system through a losing stretch.
| Book | Rules | Path | Value | Return | vs IWO | Worst dip | Cost of trading | Stops | Held |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Baseline | the control — equal weight, no stop, always fully invested | $99,033 | -0.97% | +4.74% | -4.6% | 0.66% spent | 0 | 25 | |
| B Conviction | weighted by rank, 1.5x down to 0.6x equal weight | $99,431 | -0.57% | +5.16% | -4.5% | 0.64% spent | 0 | 25 | |
| C Risk-managed | equal weight, trailing stop at 3x the name's own weekly volatility | $98,116 | -1.88% | +3.77% | -5.5% | 0.73% spent | 2 | 23 | |
| D Regime-aware | equal weight, exposure cut when the small-cap tape falls | $98,467 | -1.53% | +4.14% | -4.1% | 0.54% spent | 0 | 25 | |
| E Combined | conviction + stop + regime together | $97,954 | -2.05% | +3.60% | -4.6% | 0.60% spent | 2 | 23 | |
| F Slow | the control again, but trading every 4 weeks instead of weekly — isolates what the trading itself costs | $98,559 | -1.44% | +4.24% | -4.9% | 0.40% spent | 0 | 25 | |
| IWO benchmark | the index these books are trying to beat | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
closed books, kept on the record: v3.1 book A Baseline closed 2026-10-01 at -4.3% after 11 days; v3.1 book B Conviction closed 2026-10-01 at -4.3% after 11 days; v3.1 book C Risk-managed closed 2026-10-01 at -4.3% after 11 days; v3.1 book D Regime-aware closed 2026-10-01 at -3.4% after 11 days; v3.1 book E Combined closed 2026-10-01 at -3.5% after 11 days; v3.1 book F Slow closed 2026-10-01 at -2.4% after 8 days — a model change restarts the books, and the old runs are shown so that restarting cannot be used to forget a bad one.