​Timing of Signals and Trades
 
Our Safeguard 1st Risk Model is based on a one week delay between the time the Risk Model outputs generate a buy or sell signal and the time when the trade is executed.
 
For example, if on Friday, Oct 18th the model output reads sell, positions are assumed to be sold at the end-of-day price on Oct 27th.  In other words, the Safeguard 1st signals go "on" with a one-week delay.
 
Because a one-week delay is already “built in,” our strategies assume that trades are executed at the end of the week price when Safeguard 1st signals go on.
 
For stop losses used in our momentum strategies, the assumption is that trades are made immediately at the end-of-week prices on the Friday that the stop is hit.  Our assumption is on average, the difference between Friday’s close and the following Monday’s trade execution prices will not be significant, given the small number of stop loss trades executed by the momentum strategies and because stop losses are typically triggered for limited number of positions, their execution can be managed more quickly.