Backtest: Buy APA at the close when its daily news-sentiment score is in the top quinti...
A 69% win rate that still trails the index is the tension worth sitting with. Buying APA when its news sentiment landed in the top quintile of the prior 20 sessions but the stock closed in the bottom half of its daily range produced +37.23% on $100,000 across 45 trades. SPY returned +76.34% over the same window.
The premise is that positive E&P headlines met with selling signal supply being absorbed — someone is unloading into the headline bid, and once that pressure clears, APA snaps back toward its 5-day average. The exits are deliberately fast: a close above that average, or five trading days, whichever arrives first.
Best trade +6.04%, worst -7.35%. The full breakdown of where the edge holds and where it doesn't is below.
Buy APA at the close when its daily news-sentiment score is in the top quintile of its prior 20 sessions but APA closes in the bottom half of its daily range; exit when APA closes above its 5-day simple moving average or after 5 trading days, whichever comes first. Positive E&P headlines being met with selling marks supply that is being absorbed, so APA tends to snap back once the headline bid exhausts itself.
How this was measured
This is a simulated backtest generated from the plain-English strategy below, executed bar-by-bar on historical market data using the price + news data mode with $100,000 starting capital. Strategy: Buy APA at the close when its daily news-sentiment score is in the top quintile of its prior 20 sessions but APA closes in the bottom half of its daily range; exit when APA closes above its 5-day simple moving average or after 5 trading days, whichever comes first. Positive E&P headlines being met with selling marks supply that is being absorbed, so APA tends to snap back once the headline bid exhausts itself.
The key numbers
The charts
The takeaway
The strategy returned +37.23% on $100,000 starting capital across 45 closed trades with a 69% win rate. Over the same window SPY buy-and-hold returned +76.34%, so the strategy finished trailing the benchmark by 39.10 points. Best single trade +6.04%, worst -7.35%.
The fine print
- Simulated results on historical data — fills, slippage and costs are idealized.
- Past performance does not predict future results.