Hello all
I’m currently close to finishing the baby pips education, thus far I haven’t seen any recommendations for back testing, so here goes…
Would anyone be so kind to share what back back testing software they are using?
I’m sure this question will give others value as well as myself.
Thanks in advance for the peeps that have taken time to read and reply my post 
Hi Rourke,
I have been following Chris’ thread on this subject. You may wish to do a search on “backtest” and find some other threads that way - the second link below says there are about 50
It depends on what trading style you are looking into and what your skills are…
Also what your lifestyle is like to a degree.
Personally I’m going down two routes simultaniously.
I’m building my own backtester to my own requirements in Tradingview.
I’ve also joined a Beta Test for an EA for MT5, this is both an auto trader and backtester for a trend trading FX style trading.
Meta Trader marketplace has lots of EA’s you can pay to access, also you can demo them.
These should allow you to backtest aswell as auto trade.
Hi, use MT4 and 5 for backtesting like most traders, why you want to pay for external software?
Cheers I have a MT4 and a trading view account, I wasn’t aware back testing was available on both platforms.
Now i know this I no longer need to look any further.
@ProfesorPips, I wasn’t aware you could do this on MT4 hence me asking the question, I will not be paying for additional software now that I’m aware of this point.
Thanks for taking the time to reply
Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it will do the tests well. Good luck
That was why I raised the question in the forum, I wanted to know the software which is most approved, price was not a factor.
You and another gent In here both raised MT4 as back testing software thus far, however if you have any other useful software you’d like to recomended (irrespective of price) I’d like to hear about it and I’m sure others would value in this information too.
All the best.
These 5 platforms are ok, ultimately develop proprietary software and use FIX messages to place orders at multiple brokers. Ideally prime brokers to facilitate arbitrage rate plays, not that arbitrage is needed to succeed. Trading is professional gambling, learn everything you can in both fields.
Babypips does not let me give out my Telegram link otherwise I’d offer to network with anyone looking for answers.
I thank you both for taking time to contact be with your suggestions.
I’ll opt for trading view 1st as I’m familiar with their platform, I’ll bookmark the others for now and If I’m unhappy with service from trading view I’ll switch
I wish you both all the best 
Hi @Forex_Swiz,
I may stand corrected on this matter, but I think it is important (for newer members) to define exactly what we mean by a “trading strategy” and how that is different from a “trading plan”. It took me a long time to understand the difference and I think people use these terms interchangeably and that causes confusion.
So from the management school of hard knocks, it is my understanding that most things can be broken down into manageable chunks as long as all the participants understand a “business flow process” meaning what comes first, and how a strategy helps to define the “what and why” a Forex participant is trying to achieve, and a Plan describes the who, where, when and how is that strategy going to be achieved. Reviewing your post I think what you describe as strategies would be better thought of as plans.
But I invite others to comment (to agree, or disagree, or just to say that I write too much) on the following.
To summarize 20 odd years of Project Management navel-gazing into a short list, I have assumed that the participant has already decided what to do (trade Forex pairs) but it is not obvious to me that many have considered the Why (they are doing what they are doing) to complete the strategy bit.
Business Flow Process (chronological)
A vision - eg. I have a sh_t life and want to improve it.
Content below is plagiarized - I am not that good at writing such lofty definitions.
Goals -
A goal is a short statement of a desired outcome to be accomplished over a long time frame, usually three to five years. It is a broad statement that focuses on the desired results and does not describe the methods used to get the intended outcome.
Some common examples of business goals include the following:
Objectives
Objectives are specific, actionable targets that need to be achieved within a smaller time frame, such as a year or less, to reach a certain goal. Objectives describe the actions or activities involved in achieving a goal. For example, to achieve the goal of increasing revenues, a company can have an objective like “ Add three new products by the end of October this year. ”
Following are some examples of objectives:
Strategy
Let’s take the first example of an objective. Earn a minimum of 15% return on investment in a fiscal year.
So a statement of strategy would be
What - “Participate in Forex currency pair trading”.
Why - “To achieve the objective of earning the 15% return on investment”.
Now it makes sense that the strategy is simply a what and why.
Plan
It follows from a strategy that is linked to an objective or more than one objective, that the who, when, where and how needs to be documented. But there is another bit missing here, and this seems to be very important (in my opinion) for many newer members who come to Forex because "they have been told it is a road to riches and “how hard can it be to learn how to make a profit in the Forex market?”.
And that is that many new comers, in an old English expression "don’t have two halfpennies (ha’pennies) to rub together.
To trade, a participant needs a bank. And if a participant expects to use some of the profits in the future to be part of a second income source from the bank he allocates, then that bank needs to be sizeable compared with his current income. Let me explain.
If I earn $30,000 per year, and I am unhappy with my life because I spent $33,000 per year, I am unlikely to be able to set aside enough money to create a second income only one tenth of my current annual salary using the strategy of Forex trading to increase my income by “10% per year”. Even if you were in the top 1% of traders in your first year of participating (highly unlikely), if you had an objective to earn 15% per year, of an initial bank so that you earned $3,000 per year, the initial bank would need to be $3,000 / 0.15 = $20,000. How many new members have the unencumbered funds of $20,000 just to earn an additional income of $3,000 per year?
And that brings me around to another piece in the business flow process. In order to have a bank fund that will make any impact at all on your future income, there needs to be an options analysis performed on the strategy you intend to use to achieve that 15% return on investment to get to a bank size large enough for it to contribute in the first place.
It is that options analysis that I do not see discussed on this forum - new members join, but with the expectation that they will share the land of milk and honey, and are wholly disappointed when they can’t achieve what they dreamt they may achieve with Forex.
Rinse and Repeat
The most useful thing a new member can do, if they believe and understand the stuff written above, is to continue their passion for Forex, but in a virtual world only using a demonstration account, until such time as they can show their trading can achieve a positive edge, continuously. Whilst doing that, it would be a very realistic approach to understand that they need a sizeable bank as a pre-requisite to being able to trade Forex with a live account, so there should be another strategy that says:
What = “I need to grow a bank for Forex trading of approximately $10,000 in the first year”.
Why = "To ensure that my participation in Forex Trading has the prerequisite bank before I live trade to make a 15% return on invested funds.
And this is the whole point of options analysis that is missed out of the thought process. There often needs to be an intermediate objective (save $10K) that allows the plan of who, when, where and how to be achievable in the first place.