Obviously there could be bullish/bearish tendencies for certain pairs and I am looking into that, is it worth simply stopping shorting GBPUSD for example, or even stop trading certain pairs?
I don’t think one can generalise about bullish/bearish tendencies, especially when scalping.
It is worth remembering that every currency pair is two individual currencies, each with its own fundamental issues. What we are trading is the relative strengths/weaknesses between them.
For example, UK data may occasionally impact strongly in EURGBP but both EUR and GBP are reacting similarly against, eg, the USD or JPY, but in a varying degree of intensity.
Currencies tend to have their own “flavour of the day” from time to time and some may be more affected by commodity price issues (e.g. Oil) whilst others are more affected by possible trade war issues.
Some currencies do have strong correlations or inverse correlations which is worth keeping in mind when holding multiple positions so that risk exposure is not unintentionally increased.
Since I don’t personally trade currencies much any more I’ll leave others to add more observations here…
While 50 trades aren’t enough to reach a final conclusion, they do show some promising trends—such as an 86% success rate when buying GBP/USD and 83% when buying EUR/GBP—while also highlighting a potential weakness in shorting GBP/USD (0%). Instead of abandoning certain trades altogether, consider refining your approach by reviewing entry conditions, timing, market sentiment, and economic indicators. Pay attention to your risk-reward ratios and maintain consistency in execution. Over time, aim to build a larger sample of trades for a more accurate assessment of your overall performance. I suggest looking into the USD/CAD pair as well.
You’ll need an absolute minimum of 200 short trades on GBP/USD even to begin to answer that question with anything approaching a sensible degree of confidence. Anything else will be statistically insignificant guesses.
This is why backtesting is “the answer to everything like this,” David. Without it, you end up guessing.
More than 90% of my trades are GBP/USD or EUR/USD (technically their futures equivalents, but basically the same thing without the “broker problems” etc.)
Also - I agree with the various comments of @SovoS and @Emi.s above.
Many trading platforms have backtesting facilities built in. (They kind of have to, really, because almost nobody can trade profitably with no backtesting available? I hear ya, though!!).
Personally, I don’t think backtesting necessarily needs to be quite so thorough as a special software program and heavy maths. Ok, these may give you a specific result over a period but it is still no guarantee of performance in the future. Markets change.
In addition, backtesting for a lot of methods is almost impossible where the method hinges on drawing various lines, patterns and zones - and even on different timeframes. These kinds of Price Action methods are quite subjective in nature and impossible to input into a backtesting program. For example, how would one input a formula to find a “best fit” support line on a 4-hour TF for use on a 1H trading method?
But, as @AphoristicArmenian says above some platforms do include some kind of backtesting facilities. These are more of a practice re-run than a backtest but can be very helpful - not only in testing the effectiveness of a strategy but also in simultaneously practicing its implementation in real mode.
For example Ctrader has a Market Replay facility where you can select a historical starting date and a replay speed and you simply simulate trading it as you would in real life. You can select your position size, SL and TP levels, etc and it keeps track of your profits/losses as you go. It is a bit like running an ordinary demo account but in a fast-forward motion - and with a pause button to stop and think and draw lines etc…
Personally, I think this is perfectly adequate for most practice runs, and sufficient for pre-checking at least the viability of a strategy before starting the real challenge of trialing it in live markets - which is where the rubber really hits the road! .
You can download trade management bots and backrest manually using the visualisation mode on ctrader and I think mt5. Just need to click buttons on the chart rather than the normal ones. Bit more difficult to use pending orders
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