What Shishin is.

Shishin (四神) is a quantitative research publication. Before each US market open it publishes a ranked list of US-equity setups generated by a four-engine system that changes behaviour with the market regime. Shishin publishes research — it is not a broker, not an automated bot you hand your account to, and not personalised investment advice. You read the work and decide for yourself.

What we publish

Every trading day: a ranked list of setups with an entry trigger, a stop level, and a suggested position size; a one-line read on which market regime is in force; and, on a regular cadence, long-form research explaining the method. Everything is an observation, not an instruction — the responsibility for any trade is yours.

Four engines, four regimes

Markets are not one environment — they are several, interleaved. A breadth-driven macro classifier reads the market each day and hands the book to whichever guardian fits. Only one is awake at a time; they never trade at once.

• Genbu (玄武, North) — quality leadership when the trend is broad and strong.
• Suzaku (朱雀, South) — momentum and breakouts when participation is healthy.
• Byakko (白虎, West) — a defensive posture when breadth deteriorates.
• Seiryū (青龍, East) — selective recovery setups as a bear exhausts.

The full architecture is in Four engines for four regimes.

How it began

Shishin began with a loss — a discretionary bet that unravelled, and the decision never to trade on impulse again. What replaced it was a system: rules instead of feelings, a multi-year backtest instead of a hunch, and a hard commitment to run live exactly what was validated on history. The full origin lives in the research library.

What we hold to

• We judge the system on three numbers at once — total return, risk-adjusted return, and worst drawdown — never one in isolation.
• We run live what we backtested. No quiet retuning between the study and the trade.
• We are honest about the hard parts — survivorship, the long boring middle, and the drawdowns that are the price of the edge, not a flaw in it.

The track

Over a five-year backtest (2021-09-10 to present), the four-engine stack compounded at 139.7% CAGR, with a Sharpe of 1.83 and a worst drawdown of -17.7%. That is the whole window, not a cherry-picked stretch. Past performance does not predict future results.