Edge Score is Quantprove's Backtest output: a 0 to 100 score for how good a strategy is on paper, after costs, and how well the trades prove it. Quantprove reads your backtest in five areas, Profit, Drawdowns, Consistency, Execution and Proof, and needs at least 30 trades. An Edge Score of 70 or above means a strong edge, and 85 or above an exceptional one.
Why does Edge Score matter for traders?
Every backtest looks good to the person who built it. That is the problem. A strategy can show a clean equity curve and still have no real edge, because the curve was shaped to fit the past instead of finding something that actually repeats.
Edge Score exists to settle that question with a number. Instead of staring at a curve and hoping, you get a 0 to 100 grade that tells you how strong the edge is after costs, how rough the ride is, and how well the trades prove it.
In simpler words: Edge Score tells you whether your backtest found a real edge, and how much you can lean on it.
What does Edge Score measure?
Edge Score adds up points in five areas. Each area has a fixed share of the 100 points:
- Profit (35). How fast the account grows when the risk per trade is set so a bad year loses about 20%.
- Drawdowns (15). How long it usually waits for a new high, and how big its worst losses are next to a normal loss.
- Consistency (15). How many calendar quarters made money.
- Execution (15). How many times bigger the edge is than the trading costs.
- Proof (20). Whether there are enough trades for the edge to be clear, whether the most recent trades show it on their own, and whether it still holds without the 3 best trades.
If Profit, Drawdowns, Consistency or Execution earn less than a quarter of their points, that area is shown as weak ("Drawdowns is weak") and the score cannot read better than Moderate Edge. Proof is never a weak spot: low Proof only means the system needs more trades.
A backtest that loses money after costs scores 15 at most.
How does Edge Score handle sample size?
A backtest with 40 trades and one with 4,000 trades do not deserve the same trust, even when they look identical on the chart. Edge Score knows this.
Below 30 trades there is no score yet. Above that, the Proof area says how many trades the edge needs before it is clear, and some checks wait for more data: the worst-loss check from 100 trades, the recent-trades check from 150.
This is the same reason a real edge should hold up out of sample, not only in the data it was discovered in. Small samples flatter strategies, which is exactly the trap the Deflated Sharpe Ratio was built to expose.
What are the Edge Score tiers?
Edge Score reads on a 0 to 100 scale, in five bands:
- 85+Exceptional Edge
- 70 to 84Strong Edge
- 50 to 69Moderate Edge
- 30 to 49Weak Edge
- Below 30No Edge
Where is Edge Score used in Quantprove?
Edge Score is the core output of Backtest, the first stage in Quantprove's workflow.
It grades the backtest on its own. From there, Stability Score checks whether your live trades still match that backtest, and Health Score watches the live edge over time to catch it fading. Edge Score is the entry exam, Stability Score the graduation check, Health Score the ongoing monitor.
For how sample size shapes an Edge Score, see Edge Score and sample size.
Frequently asked questions
References
Related terms
- Health Score — A 0 to 100 score that shows whether a live strategy is still working right now, compared with what its backtest expected.
- Stability Score — A 0 to 100 score that measures whether a live strategy is delivering what its backtest promised, after costs.
- Expectancy — What one average trade is worth to you, after the wins and losses cancel out.
- Sortino Ratio — How much return a strategy earns for the losses it actually makes you feel.