{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,3]],"date-time":"2026-10-03T07:53:39Z","timestamp":1791014019844,"version":"4.1.0"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,1]],"date-time":"2026-01-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1767225600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/ip-policy\/copyright-policy\/copyright-basics"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>Backtests of trading strategies are prone to overfiFng, given that researchers typically try many variaIons and report the one that worked. This paper applies a pre-registered backtesIng protocol, of the kind proposed by ArnoM, Harvey and Markowitz (2019), to eleven well-documented signals in European equiIes and global futures, with each rule fixed before it was run, each signal tested on a development decade (2013-2022), those that qualified tested on unseen crisis years (2008-2012), and the surviving book run once on a hold-out period (2023-2026). The contribuIon lies in the approach, which combines established tools into one framework and applies it in full, with aMenIon to false posiIves and to results overstated by hidden exposures such as market beta, given that none of the tests is new and the one signal that survives is among the best documented in the literature. Only trend across futures markets made money in all three periods, with a Sharpe raIo of 0.80 in development and 0.77 in the hold-out, and its results were stronger sIll on exchange-traded funds tracking the same markets. Once the number of signals tried is taken into account, however, the evidence for trend is borderline, in that Hansen's test for superior predicIve ability finds it significant at the 5% level and its deflated Sharpe raIo falls short of significance. A power analysis indicates that tests of this length could rarely have confirmed the other signals even had they worked, and the paper also documents the implementaIon errors found along the way and their effect on the results.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.7553278","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,3]],"date-time":"2026-10-03T07:32:18Z","timestamp":1791012738000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["What Survives Honest Tes1ng? A Pre-registered Test of Eleven Trading Signals"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-4042-2514","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Yasanji","family":"Ratnaike","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"78","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,3]],"date-time":"2026-10-03T07:32:18Z","timestamp":1791012738000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/abstract=7553278"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.7553278","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}