Meta-Strategy

A Meta strategy evaluates Basic strategies as its selectable instruments. Its filters and ranking rules operate on the component strategies’ performance histories, while the underlying account trades still involve the actual instruments held by those strategies.

Create a Meta strategy

1. Open Strategy Management → New → Strategy.
2. Choose the destination folder, select Meta and give it a name.
3. Open it in Strategy Builder. In the Instruments panel, choose Add Strategy….
4. Select the Basic strategies to evaluate and confirm the selection.

An empty Meta strategy needs at least one component before it can run. Availability of Meta strategy creation and particular testing features can depend on your edition.

Understand component selection

The Meta strategy applies its selection rules to the component strategies. Entering a component means following that strategy’s underlying positions for the allocated portion. Exiting it releases that portion according to the Meta strategy’s replacement or selection rules.

Clicking a component’s name lets you inspect its configuration. Changes to a referenced component affect that actual strategy. Make a separate copy if you need an independent experiment, and read any restrictions or confirmations the application presents.

Configure the Meta strategy’s rules

Use System Settings, Buy Filters, Ranking and Sell Filters to define how the Meta strategy selects its components. For example, an indicator applied to a component’s equity history evaluates that strategy’s historical behavior, rather than the price of a separately listed ETF.

A Meta strategy can hold several components at once, depending on its settings. Its cash-equivalent instrument remains an actual instrument. Examine the component mix and overlapping exposures when reviewing the combined result.

Backtest and inspect results

1. Set the benchmark, dates and reserved sample periods in the Backtest panel.
2. Run a manual test and review the reports. Use a memo to record the configuration you evaluated.
3. Inspect component positions, their charts and the underlying Trade Signals.
4. Use Manual Results to compare or reload tested configurations.

A component strategy’s chart represents the strategy’s modeled performance; it is not an exchange-traded security with its own trading volume. The Trade Signals report identifies the underlying instrument actions associated with selected components.

When Divine Engine testing is available and enabled, its parameterization determines what it may vary. Use the current test-management and candidate-review guides for that workflow.

Distinguish model components from broker orders

The same instrument can appear in more than one component. Its presentation in the model does not, by itself, determine whether broker orders will be combined. Review the applicable order settings, including order merging, and use orders and reconciliation to verify actual execution.

A further layer of strategy selection is still a historical model. It can change risk and exposure, but does not establish that the combined strategy will be profitable or avoid losses.