Strategy Inclusion Criteria

Eligibility is not endorsement

BestFolio's catalog combines strategies from academic papers, books, practitioner whitepapers, and documented public posts. Before a strategy is implemented, the first question is not whether its historical return looks attractive. The first question is whether the rules are clear enough to test under the same framework as every other strategy.

Clearing the inclusion process means a candidate is eligible for a faithful implementation. It does not mean BestFolio endorses the strategy, expects it to outperform, or considers it suitable for a particular investor. That distinction matters because some strategies remain useful as research comparisons even when their risk or design prevents an endorsement.

The four inclusion gates

1. Published, documented rules. The source must be an academic paper, book, practitioner whitepaper, or sufficiently detailed public post. A proprietary claim that cannot be reconstructed from public information does not qualify.
2. Mechanical, unambiguous signals. The specification must be precise enough that two independent implementers using the same inputs would produce the same signal. Rules that depend on discretionary judgment or an unstated interpretation stop here.
3. Publicly tradable instruments. The implementation must use instruments available to a retail account, such as ETFs, mutual funds, or index funds. Institutional-only instruments, unlisted alternatives, and OTC derivatives are outside the catalog.
4. At least ten years of testable history. The live instruments must provide enough history, or a documented proxy chain must extend the series far enough to cover at least one full business cycle. A candidate without that minimum window is not admitted.

What the gates decide

A candidate that passes all four gates can move into implementation and validation. A candidate that fails is set aside. In a limited case, a failed or materially flawed idea may still be implemented because it is useful for comparison; when that happens, BestFolio labels it as educational or non-endorsed and records the reasoning in the rejection log.

This creates two separate records: the catalog shows what can be reproduced, while the rejection log shows where implementation did not support an endorsement. Publishing both sides reduces the temptation to show only favorable tests.

What happens after inclusion

Inclusion is the start of the research process, not its conclusion. The strategy is reconstructed from its source rules, run on the common data and cost framework, and shown with the disclosures needed to understand where live fund history ends and proxy or synthetic history begins.

The resulting record can then be examined for transaction costs, drawdowns, parameter sensitivity, walk-forward behavior, and the effect of testing many candidate strategies. These later checks answer different questions from inclusion: a strategy can be reproducible yet fragile, investable yet excessively risky, or historically attractive without offering a reliable reason to expect the pattern to persist.

Limits of the process

• Public documentation can still contain omissions. When a rule cannot be resolved without editorial judgment, it should not pass the mechanical-signal gate.
• Proxy and synthetic histories are hypothetical before the live instrument existed. They extend the test window but do not turn simulated performance into observed fund performance.
• A ten-year window is a minimum evidence requirement, not proof that a rule is robust across every market environment.
• Passing every gate cannot eliminate selection bias, model risk, or future underperformance.

A reproducible starting line

The inclusion criteria are deliberately plain: document the rules, remove discretion, use tradable instruments, and require enough history to run a meaningful test. Their value comes from applying the same starting line to every candidate and keeping endorsement as a separate, more demanding decision.