Overfitting checklist — 10 signs your strategy is curve-fit
After 8 years of building EAs, this is my personal checklist. Score 3 or more and the strategy is probably noise, in my experience:
- More than 4 optimized parameters
- Parameter "islands" — only one input combination is profitable
- Profit factor above 3 on the in-sample test
- Perfect equity curve with under 5% drawdown
- Works on only one pair and one timeframe
- Filters that remove exactly the losing trades
- Optimization window shorter than 3 years
- No untouched out-of-sample period
- Entry logic with more than 5 conditions
- You "fixed" the strategy after seeing the first backtest
What would you add or remove?