The event-based testing engine.
Trade Ideas OddsMaker: Backtest Any Trading Idea Across All Stocks
OddsMaker tests your Streaming Alerts and Top List filters against real market events across every stock, so you see what is working now before you risk capital.
An event-based testing engine built on the same data as Holly AI. Holly’s brain under the hood.
Named to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies six years in a row (2017–2022).
Validate any idea across all stocks
That’s your strategy now. You are the quant.
You don't need decades of index data. OddsMaker tests your setup on recent market events across all US-listed stocks.
How OddsMaker backtesting works
OddsMaker is the Trade Ideas backtester. It answers one question before you put money on the line: when this event happened in the past, what did the stock do next?
- Pick the idea. Start from any Streaming Alert, a set of Top List filters, or your own filters built in the Formula Editor. If you can describe it as an alert or a filter, OddsMaker can test it.
- Set the rules. Choose your entry times and how you exit: a stop, a profit target, a timed hold, or an exit at a set time of day.
- Replay real events. OddsMaker replays real past market events across all stocks, not one chart and not one index. Every time your alert fired or a stock met your filters, it becomes a test trade.
- Read the results. The test shows the trades it produced, the win rate and the profit factor, so you can see whether the idea held up and tighten the rules where it did not.
Holly AI runs this kind of testing behind the scenes every night and only sends signals for the strategies that pass, each with an entry, a stop and an exit. See Holly AI signals.
When a strategy holds up, trade it live with Brokerage Plus or automate it with Money Machine.
Comparing backtesters? See how OddsMaker compares with no-code and code-first tools in the best backtesting software of 2026.
Trade Ideas also monitors unusual options activity across all stocks, with its own channel in TI Pro and the Web Dashboard.
If you are okay with static non-refreshing data, Trade Ideas is probably not your best choice.
Break a test down, then optimize it
One overall result hides a lot. The Optimization tab in the OddsMaker results splits a test into segments: time of day, price and symbol each have their own tab, and every other filter in the strategy can be broken down by its values. For each segment you can compare profit factor, win rate, average gain per trade, total gain and number of trades, and a double-click lists the trades behind it.
Use what you find to refine the strategy. The guide’s suggestion is to duplicate the Alert window, adjust the filters and run OddsMaker again until the results match what you are after. The OddsMaker guide also covers the entry, exit and risk settings each test uses.
Your own measurements can be tested too. In the Formula Editor you combine the underlying variables with math, Boolean logic and if-statements into a derived measurement, saved as a custom filter that OddsMaker tests like any built-in one (Formula Editor guide). OddsMaker is part of TI Premium, and Holly runs the same test-and-optimize pass on her own strategies every night: see how Holly picks each session’s strategies and the full loop.
Trade Ideas OddsMaker questions
What is backtesting in stock trading?
Backtesting means running a trading idea against past market data to see how it would have performed before you risk real money. You define the entry, the exit and the stop, and the test shows the trades that idea would have produced.
How is OddsMaker different from a normal backtester?
Most backtesters replay price bars on one chart or index. OddsMaker is event-based: it tests what happened every time an alert fired or a stock met your filters, across all stocks. That shows you what is working now across the market, not what worked on one symbol years ago.
Can I backtest my own alerts and filters?
Yes. OddsMaker tests any Streaming Alert, any Top List filter combination, and your own custom filters written in the Formula Editor.
Does Holly AI use OddsMaker?
Yes. Holly AI runs OddsMaker-style testing every night to choose the strategies for the next trading day, and only sends signals for the strategies that pass, each with an entry, a stop and an exit.