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Principals

Institutional Trading
Strategy Design

Strategy #1 – "JET"
Bond Intraday
Institutional Only

Strategy #2 "JET" Euro Currency Intraday
Institutional Only

Strategy #3 "SIB
Bond" Daily
Institutional Only

Strategy #4 Trend & Cycle
S&P 500 Daily

Institutional and Corporate Clients FAQ

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Institutional Trading Strategy Design

Corporate history

KeyPoint Market Analytics was formed in 1996 to serve the needs of institutional clients in the area of technical trading strategies and systems. The company is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a licensed trading advisor (CTA). The company principal, Joe Duffy, is also a member of the National Futures Association.

What we do

KeyPoint Market Analytics develops mechanical rule-based trading strategies and systems designed to make automated buy and sell decisions. While some clients may use our strategies as a tool to “trade around”, the functional design of our systems is to generate 100% mechanical buy and sell signals. The strategies are designed to run on technical analysis software platforms that integrate automated trading system capabilities.

Trading Strategy development philosophy

The mechanical Trading Strategies developed by KeyPoint Market Analytics are based on observation of market behavior rather than overly complex quantitative formulas. Our success is guided by two secrets of strategy development. First, simpler is almost always better. And second, simple solutions are rarely obvious.
KeyPoint Market Analytics takes great care and pride to avoid any form of curve fitting or over-optimization in strategy development. Any Trading Strategy developed by KeyPoint Market Analytics is designed to show zero performance degradation
once released.

Trading Strategy design requirements

Institutional clients can request any combination of Trading Strategy performance qualifications required. We will compare your requirements to anticipated benefits and determine whether there is a suitable basis to continue in the development process.

Trading logic disclosure

KeyPoint Market Analytics will typically produce what could be called “grey box” Trading Strategies. This means the actual trading logic will only be generally or partially disclosed. This protects KeyPoint Market Analytics and its clients by ensuring that a Trading Strategy specifically designed for one client can never fall into the hands of another. Conversely, a fully disclosed strategy reveals the entire trading logic.

Grey box strategies may be leased using a formula based on performance. Fully disclosed strategies are purchased.

Trading Strategy optimization

Optimization of a Trading Strategy refers to the process of testing and fine-tuning parameters within a Trading Strategy. Some level of optimization is necessary to determine what is valid and what is not.

We diligently avoid curve fitting to historical market data, as over-optimization is an exercise that is ultimately self-defeating. There are a number of ways to avoid over-optimization. A top performing Trading Strategy generally relies on its simplicity, but any strategy we develop will include a specific discussion concerning this issue.

Financial markets covered

KeyPoint Market Analytics has designed Trading Strategies for the major financial markets including currencies, bonds, stock indices, crude oil and gold.
We will design to any time frame from micro intraday
to long-term strategies for position/swing trades.

Role of quantitative analysis

While everything in a mechanical rule-based strategy ultimately depends on mathematical formulas, we believe our greatest asset is 25 years of involvement in markets on an intraday basis. Our trading strategies are based on the discovery of enduring market character, rather than on highly sophisticated quantitative applications.

Who can use a mechanical Trading Strategy

Any corporation or institution that is either trading, or hedging a core position, can benefit from a mechanical trading strategy. While there are obvious advantages in being in tune with the fundamentals, markets are not always efficient. They can remain irrational for extended periods and sudden shifts in the fundamentals can occur without warning. Trading with a sound rule-based strategy around a fundamental bias, can be significantly more successful then either alone. Trading and/or hedging with the empirical information provided by a thoroughly tested trading strategy can be advantageous for the vast majority of market participants.