Northline is a systematic, rules-based swing trading framework designed to identify and capture institutional accumulation patterns across U.S. equities, with defined risk on every position and zero human discretion in execution.
01PHILOSOPHY
Markets price known information instantly. Northline does not forecast what happens next; it reacts to measurable capital movement in the present.
Most market participants attempt to predict future price direction by reading news, forecasting quarterly earnings, and interpreting macroeconomic conditions. This approach is inherently unreliable because liquid markets price known public information instantly.
Analyst forecasts and discretionary calls under pressure introduce emotional lag and cognitive bias into trade execution.
Northline operates on a strictly mathematical foundation. Institutional participants—the entities that actually move markets—cannot deploy significant capital without leaving measurable volume and order-flow traces in tick data.
Northline reads institutional accumulation fingerprints, co-positions alongside real capital flows, and exits systematically when those flows reverse.
“We are not in the business of forecasting. We are in the business of following capital flows with discipline and exiting when those flows reverse.
02THE UNIVERSE
Not all stocks are tradeable. Northline applies strict eligibility criteria before any equity enters consideration.
Every stock in the universe must have a minimum of $5 million in average daily trading volume. This ensures positions can be entered and exited without material price impact, particularly important as capital scales.
$5M+ Daily Volume RequiredThe system targets equities priced between $1 and $200 per share. This range captures the broadest opportunity set of liquid, institutionally-relevant equities while avoiding both micro-cap illiquidity and concentration risk in very high-priced names.
$1 - $200 Price RangeBasic fundamental filters screen for earnings momentum, revenue growth, and margin characteristics. The purpose is not deep value analysis it is to avoid structurally deteriorating businesses that institutions are exiting rather than accumulating.
Fundamental Pre-Screen AppliedThe system avoids names that are too illiquid or too thinly traded. As capital scales across accounts, position sizes increase, and illiquid stocks can be materially impacted by larger orders. Liquidity discipline is not optional. It is structural.
03WHAT WE TRADE
Every position Northline takes is executed on U.S. regulated exchanges the same markets used by institutional investors, pension funds, and the world’s largest asset managers.
Northline scans 3,000+ U.S. equities daily and has traded 451 unique tickers since inception, exclusively on NYSE, NASDAQ and S&P 500. Shares only. No leverage. No derivatives. No offshore markets.
04SIGNAL ARCHITECTURE
The architecture processes stock-level factors and market-level indicators simultaneously through the AI machine learning model.
For each stock under consideration, the system evaluates 158 individual factors covering volume patterns, volatility characteristics, mean reversion signals, and momentum indicators across multiple timeframes.
64 market-level indicators are derived from the S&P 500, NASDAQ, and Dow Jones Industrial Average, providing macro context that influences position sizing, sector allocation, and signal aggressiveness.
05INSTITUTIONAL FOOTPRINT DETECTION
Large positions cannot be built invisibly. Sustained volume, controlled advancement, and persistent order flow leave a measurable signature.
The largest institutional investors manage tens of trillions. When building exposure, orders are executed over days or weeks, creating an unmistakable mathematical signature.
Institutional accumulation appears as sustained volume above historical averages. Northline distinguishes genuine deliberate institutional bid from retail momentum noise.
Northline enters alongside the institutional flow with defined stop-loss risk. When the footprint reverses, the system exits systematically without emotional hesitation.
“This is not a prediction that the stock will rise. It is an observation that large capital is moving into the position and a disciplined decision to move with it.”
Trail Evidence Analogy: Think of fresh snow on a mountain trail. You cannot see who walked there, but you can see exactly where they went, how quickly they moved, and whether they were heading up or turning back. Institutional order flow leaves the exact same undeniable evidence.
06REGIME DETECTION
Northline continuously classifies conditions and changes exposure gradually not through a single binary switch.
Broad market trending upward with healthy breadth and institutional participation. Signal aggressiveness is highest. Position sizing at full allocation. Maximum concurrent positions active.
Market advancing but with narrow leadership. Sector rotation signals active. System focuses on sector leaders with strongest institutional footprints.
Market consolidating without clear directional bias. Entry selectivity increases. Position sizing reduced. System waits for higher-conviction setups.
Institutional distribution patterns detected. New entries become highly selective. Existing positions managed tightly. Capital preservation prioritized.
Extreme volatility with abnormal cross-asset correlations. System significantly reduces exposure. In severe conditions, trading pauses entirely. Capital preservation is the only objective.
Regime classification is not binary. The system operates on a continuous scale, gradually adjusting position sizing, entry selectivity, and sector exposure as conditions shift. There is no single moment when the system switches from aggressive to defensive. It transitions the way a skilled navigator adjusts course rather than making sharp turns.
07RISK MANAGEMENT
The most important decisions in systematic trading are not entry decisions they are risk decisions. Every position has a defined maximum loss before execution.
Position size is calculated algorithmically before every entry not estimated, not approximated. The calculation is based on the distance between the entry price and the stop loss level, divided into 4% of current account equity. This means position size varies by trade, but maximum loss exposure is constant.
In practical terms: even if a stock dropped 50% overnight, the maximum impact on the total account is less than 1%, because the position size is small enough relative to the potential move.
Stop losses are not optional overlays they are structural requirements of every trade. The system uses hard stop losses calculated from structural price levels and volatility-adjusted parameters. When a stop is hit, the position is exited without exception, without override, and without hesitation.
There is no human review of stop-loss exits. The system executes. This removes the single greatest source of loss in discretionary trading the inability to accept being wrong.
In addition to per-trade risk limits, the system monitors total portfolio drawdown in real time. If drawdown approaches predefined thresholds, position sizing is automatically reduced and new entries are suspended. In extreme cases genuine black swan events the system can be paused entirely to preserve capital.
This is the final layer of protection. Across four years of backtested and simulated performance, the maximum portfolio drawdown has been 9.16%.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Includes live, backtested, and simulated results. Trading involves risk of loss. See full disclaimer ↗
08EXECUTION
Every aspect of execution is deliberately constrained to maximize simplicity, transparency, and risk control.
Options introduce expiration dates, time decay, and leverage dynamics that make fully hands-off risk management significantly harder. ETFs aggregate individual signals in ways that dilute the institutional footprint detection edge. Northline trades individual equity shares only clean, direct exposure.
Shorting has theoretically unlimited downside. A stock can only fall to zero, but it can rise without limit. A single overnight gap-up event in a shorted position can cause catastrophic losses that exceed any stop-loss. The stock market has a structural upward bias over time. Northline works with that bias rather than against it.
All trading occurs inside the client's own Interactive Brokers account. Interactive Brokers is one of the most regulated and capitalized brokerages in the world. Vori Research connects via API with trade execution permissions only never withdrawal or transfer access.
The system averages 52.6 trades per month across the full universe. This frequency reflects the swing trading timeframe positions held an average of 15.2 days generating enough activity for meaningful compounding without overtrading in poor conditions.
Vori Research connects via API to execute trades only. Your funds remain in your own account at one of these U.S. regulated brokerages never in our custody.
Where applicable, uninvested cash may be FDIC-insured through your broker's bank sweep program, and securities may be SIPC-protected if the broker-dealer fails. Coverage varies by broker and account type.
09BOUNDARIES
Understanding the boundaries of a strategy is as important as understanding its capabilities. These are deliberate constraints not limitations.
01Does not short sell any equity
02Does not use leverage of any kind
03Does not trade options, futures, or derivatives
04Does not trade ETFs or index instruments
05Does not hold positions through identified distribution regimes
06Does not override stop losses under any circumstance
07Does not trade based on news, earnings forecasts, or macro predictions
08Does not operate in markets outside U.S.-listed equities
09Does not pool client capital each account operates independently
10Does not guarantee returns or promise specific performance outcomes
11Does not use martingale or grid strategies
These constraints exist because each represents a category of risk that is either unlimited, unmanageable, or misaligned with the capital preservation philosophy that underpins the entire strategy. A strategy's edge comes as much from what it refuses to do as from what it does.
10PERFORMANCE CONTEXT
The strategy has operated through the COVID crash and recovery, the 2021 bull market, the 2022 bear market, and the 2023–2024 recovery.
COVID crash and recovery. Regime detection reduced exposure during March dislocation.
Strong bull market. Risk-on expansion regime. Full participation across momentum leaders.
NASDAQ -35%. S&P -25%. Regime detection shifted to risk-off early. Drawdown contained.
Uneven recovery. Rotation-focused regime classification. Sector leaders outperformed.
Year to date as of October 2024.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Includes live, backtested, and simulated results. Trading involves risk of loss. See full disclaimer ↗
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Includes live, backtested, and simulated results. Trading involves risk of loss. See full disclaimer ↗
Review the full performance data four years of backtested and simulated performance.