Bob Pardo is a pioneering force in algorithmic trading, best known for developing Walk-Forward Analysis – the industry gold standard for strategy validation and robustness testing. With a career beginning in the 1970s on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and later supporting high-stakes bond trading at Salomon Brothers, Pardo laid the groundwork for modern quantitative trading. He founded Pardo Corporation and Pardo Group Limited, providing advanced technical analysis tools and consulting for major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Daiwa Securities.
As a money manager, Pardo created the XT99 Diversified program, which ran from 1999 to 2012 and delivered a 19% annualized return on $40M in capital. The strategy earned over 35 top rankings by BarclayHedge and gained industry recognition during the 2008 financial crisis with a +142% return. Building on that success, he launched Pardo Renaissance Diversified—a next-generation algorithmic trading system boasting pro forma returns of 29.98% and a Sharpe Ratio of 2.5, with enhanced volatility controls.
In addition to his software innovations – Pardo wrote the influential books The Design, Testing, and Optimization of Trading Systems and its updated edition The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies. Today, through Pardo & Company, he offers elite consulting services and software, continuing to shape the field of quantitative trading with his expertise in strategy design.
