Comparing Exhaustive Search and Evolutionary Computation

Exhaustive Search Method

In the construction of technical analysis trading systems one might use a brute-force or exhaustive search for the optimized set of rules. You select a list of indicators and, for each indicator, the range of possible values.

As an example, one indicator would be the simple moving average. There are versions of that average for the open, high, low, close and volume values at each trading bar. Each of those versions must be tested with a range of periods. One might build tests for each period from 5 to 300 bars.

All indicators must be tested with each of the possible variables. That's everything from the 5-bar, simple moving average of the open to the 300-bar simple moving average of the volume. Now multiply that by the number of bars in your stock's data file.

So far you have built the tests for just one indicator. The number of test combinations quickly explodes.