Backtesting
Give your strategy a history to answer to.
Explore how an approach behaved across earlier market conditions. Inspect the wins, losses, drawdowns, and assumptions before deciding whether it deserves further work.
Explore without an account. Choose a plan for deeper research.
The path matters as much as the finish
- The rule
- State the approach you want to evaluate
- The history
- Use information available at the time
- The result
- Inspect outcomes and drawdown together
Test the idea
Evaluate a strategy, flow screen, chain metric, or idea family.
See the difficult periods
Look at losses and drawdowns alongside the upside.
Understand the assumptions
Keep entry rules, costs, and the testing window in view.
01 / A closer look
Test the version you could have traded.
Historical research only helps when the inputs were available at the time and the entry was possible at the stated price.
Use point-in-time data and inspect the assumptions behind a run. A result that depends on future information cannot tell you how the approach would have worked.
The entry and costs belong in the result
02 / Put it in context
Learn from the periods that did not work.
A strategy’s path can tell you more than its final return. Compare market regimes, the number of observations, and how outcomes change across test windows.
Backtests are research, not a promise of future performance. Use them to challenge the idea and identify what to investigate next.
Keep the testing window in view
Your next move
Give your next idea a stronger starting point.
Explore the research and the public record. Then decide which assumptions deserve a closer test.