How do you backtest?

Hi,

My first post here so hopefully everyone goes easy on my answer :sweat_smile: If you can computer code, you can write your trading strategy as an expert advisor (a robot) and back test it on years of data. You can do this on a meta trader 4 or 5 platform. Pretty much every broker has meta trader. So, it’s not straightforward learning coding and writing an expert advisor but can be done, I am teaching myself and am writing expert advisors now and back testing them. I am still doing this on a demo account by the way as I am still pretty new to trading. Learning to code an expert advisor if you don’t have a coding background is not easy and can take quite a while to learn, but I have found it fun so far, maybe I am a bit of a nerd at heart.

Good luck

welcome to the forum, good luck and good wishes :sunglasses:

fun is one thing, but if you’re doing this with a view to income, i respectfully but strongly advise you (as some others will, also) not to try to program/automate anything until after you’ve traded profitably manually for a while :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I am using demo account. I won’t trade real money until I can prove to myself that I can make money on a demo account. It’s all good, I have a good job that I’m not planning to leave any time soon, so I am in no rush to make money trading fires. it’s still a hobby for me and I have lots to learn. I just find coding EAs fun and I find the ability to back test your trading strategy invaluable. Also, the data you get from it can be analysed, I have started to do it through excel. Doing this allows you to analyse your strategy for numerous attributes… I am no expert by any stretch, but I can see the possibilities with Expert Advisors, data is king lol, just need to know what to do with it :sweat_smile:

1 Like

for me, running an EA in a MT4 strategy tester using tick data is the only way to test a strategy, other than live demo testing but this obviously takes considerably longer.

Is there any means or app for free backtesting apart from EAs. Please I need one, if you know any. Thanks

Indeed, backtesting is a crucial part of my trading strategy.

I use TradingView for backtesting my trading strategies. Its user-friendly interface and accurate features enhance the analysis of historical data.

I’m involved in copy trading and when it comes to testing different leaders’ strategies, I rely on Zulutrade’s Simulator tool. It allows me to easily test how their strategies performed in the past. Before I follow and copy their trades, I just make sure they align with my goals. And this tool has got my back on that front.

I use trading view to backtest. Alternatively there are some back testing softwares you can buy online.