Want a real pairs trading example instead of theory? Here’s one straight from our platform: Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) and MGM Resorts (MGM). Two Las Vegas-rooted leisure stocks. One quietly reliable trading relationship.
The numbers: 12 trades, 12 winners
We ran a 5-year end-of-day backtest at $5,000 per leg. The results speak plainly:
- 12 completed trades — every one profitable
- Net profit: $3,122 after $258 in commissions
- Average profit per trade: $260
- Maximum drawdown: just 4.02%
The equity curve is a staircase, not a rollercoaster. Slow, steady, repeatable.
Past performance never guarantees future results. But it does tell you where to look.
The real test: 36 months out of sample
Backtests are easy. Live markets are honest. We’ve followed this pair out of sample for the last 36 months, and the relationship kept delivering. A recent signal fired on October 22nd, 2025. The trade closed nine days later for a net gain of $230.87. No forecasting. No market opinion. Just mean reversion doing its job.
Another signal on 13 March 2026, closed 17 days later and left another $113.02 in the PnL:
Why this pair works
Look under the hood and the logic is obvious.To be precise: MGM runs the casinos; HGV sells vacation ownership — including four Las Vegas resorts, but not a single gaming table. Both carry the same Resorts & Casinos classification, yet what truly binds them is the same marginal customer: the American leisure traveler with discretionary dollars to spend, in Vegas and beyond. Betas of 1.5 ad 1.3, closely aligned. Their valuations track closely too — EV/Sales of 2.29 versus 2.16 and a P/E ratio of 22 vs. 24. When two businesses share the same economic engine, their stock prices rarely stay apart for long. Even Zack’s Rank has them both at 3 for predicted earnings surprise potential. That’s the fundamental glue behind the statistics, confirmed by a current cointegration reading of 0.97.
What’s the Catch? Well, that’s really the whole point of PTF Ultimate Alpha 3
Here’s what nobody tells you: great pairs don’t trade often. HGV/MGM produced just 12 signals in five years. You can’t sit and watch one pair. Consequently, the retail pair trader faces two problems:
- Finding these pairs. They’re needles in a haystack of hundreds of thousands of combinations and permutations.
- Watching enough of them. You need a live radar across 100+ vetted pairs, so that somewhere, most weeks, a signal fires.
That’s precisely what PairTrade Finder® was built for. The screener finds the needles. The watchlist and autotrading engine keep 100+ pairs under constant surveillance, ready to act while you live your life.
Institutional desks have run this playbook for decades. The tools are now on your desktop.
Ready to find your own HGV/MGM? Start your PairTrade Finder® free trial today.
