Historical vs Live Behaviour
Is a connected account still behaving the way its backtest said it would?
For a connected portfolio, SIPS compares how each strategy and the portfolio are trading live with comparable periods of their own history, and classifies three measures: Return, Drawdown and Trade Frequency. It is a measurement of whether live trading still looks like the history — not a prediction or advice.
The classifications
Each measure is placed as a percentile among matched historical periods, then classified:
- Return — Outperforming at the 80th percentile or above; Normal from 40th to below 80th; Watch from 20th to below 40th; Deviation below the 20th.
- Drawdown (lower is better) — Outperforming at the 10th percentile or below; Normal above 10th up to 80th; Watch above 80th up to 90th; Deviation above the 90th.
- Trade Frequency (trading much more or much less than usual both matter) — Normal from the 20th to 80th percentile; Watch from 10th to 20th or 80th to 90th; Deviation outside the 10th–90th range. Trade Frequency is never “Outperforming”.
Action Needed is an escalation shown when a trading limit is breached, when two or more measures are in Deviation at once, or when a severe Return or Drawdown deviation persists in two of the last three daily checks. When several apply, the most serious is shown: Action Needed, then Deviation, Watch, Outperforming, Normal.
There’s also a temporary state, Building Sample, which isn’t a classification.
Building Sample
SIPS shows Building Sample until it has enough evidence to classify — all three are required first:
- 7 full live calendar days
- 5 closed live trades
- 20 matched historical comparison windows
Reading the percentile wording
You may see wording like “Better than 31% of similar historical periods and worse than 69%.” This means 31% of comparable historical periods produced a lower result and 69% a higher one — it is a percentile ranking, not a claim that your return is numerically 69% lower than something.
Return basis
Return is compared as trading P/L in money, not as a percentage, because there’s no single defensible starting-capital basis for a percentage across every matched historical window.
Behaviour History Explorer
Click the eye next to any Behaviour row — on the Dashboard’s Portfolio Behaviour card or in Live Portfolio Detail’s strategy table — to see Return, Drawdown and Trade Frequency tabs, each with a Current Behaviour summary and a 60-day historical reference heatmap.
60-Day Forward Transition
A day-by-day strip covering a fixed 60-day horizon. Early on, each day blends your final historical evidence with the live days so far (a “Hybrid Transition”); from day 60 onward every cell is live evidence, and later cells become a rolling 60-live-day window. The real gap between your backtest ending and your Bridge connecting is never filled with made-up zero-activity days — it is shown as a note with the real dates.