What is the best way to backtest and how long should you be backtesting before trying out your strategy on a demo account?
what you understand by “best way to backtest” and “how long should you be backtesting before trying out your strategy on a demo account?” ?
My very limited knowledge of backtesting consists of running your strategy through a replay of the timeframe a year back. I haven’t done it yet. Hence the question. But this is what my current understanding is:
Running the strategy means sticking to the rules of the strategy. After a session of BT is done, I’d post each trade in a journal to collect data. I’d review and analyze the data after I’ve gotten a. 100 trades worth of data.
I’d do this until I see the strategy is profitable. If the first iteration isn’t, I’d tweak the strategy or see if the strategy is for me at all.
But another question that arise when writing this is, what if my knowledge and skill doesn’t show if the strategy is profitable? Like, I’m currently using the camelback technique, which is a proven profitable strategy. For me, it’s not. Probably due to me not being able to recognize what is a good strong trend. At this point, I’m not sure whether backtesting will help. This journey is quite challenging…
Maybe you need to take a step back and tweak your strategy till it works because you did say that the strategy is “Proven Profitable” but if there are still no positive results after that, maybe it’s not the one for you.
Thing is that I only started 2 weeks ago with zero experience. I’m using s strategy that is proven profitable, but I’m not getting the results and I believe it’s because of my lacking experience and skill. I probably enter too many trades as I see trends as positive for the trade, but it probably isn’t. So my question should maybe rather be, how can I get to the point where I can properly backtest strategies.
If you backtest with spreadsheets, send a screenshot
what is camelback strategy? is it discretionary method? one year is not enough data to evaluate strategy, try to include crisis data like covid time.
there is no one method to create and test strategies, you have to learn it.
according to @DaddyPL wrote about back and tweak strategy till it works. It is pure road to overfitting, that kind of strategy will not work on real market.
Something about backtesting. Backtesting is more than only check profitable in the past, it is also simulating different market conditions like slippage and verify how strategy handle it.
You said it yourself you don’t even know your strategy because you lack experience and skill…
And then you ask the question how can you properly backtest? You answered your own question - when you learned enough to fully understand your strategy.
If your question is where can you learn? There are plenty of available resources online youtube, other forums.
Also 2 weeks is barely enough to learn the basic of the basics… Trading often is misunderstood as a skill. Reading the market is a skill just like any other craft. You need to go to uni and practice for years before becoming a surgeon/lawyer/engineer/accountant, and trading is the same… 2 weeks is just enough for you to understand what candlesticks are… 
You are absolutely on the right path though, and everyone needs to go through what you are going through. But it’s good to set your expectations right, so that you can have the motivation to keep going.