BTFD Bot's Buy Signal Scoring System

Disclaimer: the BTFD Bot buy signal scores are shown for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as a recommendation to buy a particular security at the specific price.

What Are Signal Scores?

BTFD Bot has two scoring systems. A custom algorithm classifies entry signals as HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW. Extensive backtesting and testing with real money has demonstrated that the HIGH ranked buy signals consistently outperform the LOW ranked signals. You can see this by going to the daily/weekly backtester and adjusting the first Signal Scoring dropdown list to filter the buy signals by their signal score.

There is also a machine learning (AI) driven scoring system. This ranks trades on a scale from 0 to 1. Trades ranked smart_toy0.800 and above have a higher probability of success. Trades ranked smart_toy0.900 and above are even better. Again, this can be demonstrated in the daily/weekly backtester by adjusting the second Signal Scoring dropdown list to filter the buy signals by their machine learning score.

Why are there two scoring systems? It's good to get a second opinion. When both systems agree then the trade has a much higher probability of success. For this reason some trades are marked as FIRE SALE entries. These are rare opportunities to buy high quality securities at knockdown prices. You can see this in the daily/weekly backtester by changing the Signal Type dropdown list to only show the Best Buy Signals entries. These are rare opportunities to buy high quality securities at knockdown prices. You can see this in the daily/weekly backtester by changing the Signal Type dropdown list to only show the Best Buy Signals.

Do They Make a Difference?

I have extensively tested the scoring system. Entering trades for only the higher quality buy signals does appear to improve the results of backtesting BTFD Bot's trading strategies

The drawback? The improvements are only really apparent after a large number of trades have been placed. The system also appears more effective when used with individual stocks. It is less effective with Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

Another major factor is that the buy signal scoring system is significantly more effective when used for higher swing trading profits. With the fixed profit set at 20%, the results are significantly different between buying just the signals with the highest scores as opposed to buying the signals with the lowest scores.

Buying only the higher rated signals (i.e. 69% or above) often significantly improves the win rate of trades. Buying only the lower quality rated signals (i.e. below 30%) significantly reduces the win rate. The major difference I have detected is that avoiding the lower rated signals does significantly reduce the average drawdown. In one test of UK stocks I instructed the backtester to only buy signals with a quality score of 69% or above. This resulted in a win rate of 68.8% and an average drawdown of 12.8%. By contrast, buying only signals rated below 19% resulted in a 59.8% win rate and an average drawdown of 39.9%. Increasing the signal score threshold to 39% or below resulted in a win rate of 68.4% and an average drawdown of 32.4%. So the signal system does appear to be fairly effective. The disadvantage is that reducing the number of trades can reduce overall returns because the portfolio may not be entirely invested in the market.

Coming soon... I will make a video about the system and also begin testing of the signal scores with real money.

Case Study

The table below shows buy signals for the Zoetis. The buy signal on 21 January 2022 was assigned a score of 45, which is fairly low. This buy signal was never profitable. It also had a maximum drawdown of 34.9% - the highest recorded of all the buy signals in this particular table. There was a lower rated signal: the signal with the score of 30 on 13 November 2025. This buy signal was in fact profitable, returning 5% and 6%. However at the time of writing it had not returned more than this.

The highest rated signal is the one on 25 March 2020 and has a score of 85. This was a very profitable entry point and returned 20% after just 13 days. It also had minimal drawdown.

The other signals are more mixed but in general the higher rated signals have fared better. Given enough swing trades over time and the scoring system appears to be highly effective.