Forex Back Testing Software

Do you want to be more confident about your trades?

I was struggling to take trades that I learned from books and courses.  The reason I was nervous pulling the trigger was because I was not confident in how the trades worked or if they would work at all.  But what could I do?

For me the answer was simple, I had to practice and backtest these strategies.  However, it was difficult to find a forex backtesting software solution that suited my needs.  MetaTrader is good for testing automated systems, but I wanted to find a system that would simulate actual market conditions by allowing me to add indicators, step through each candle/bar and take trades as the signals came up.

This what I really needed because it is tough to go back through complete charts and try to simulate what I would have done in a particular situation.  Sure, I could use a piece of paper to uncover the chart slowly to simulate the market unfolding, but my arm got tired and it was hard to write down the trades and hold the paper at the same time.

All joking aside, I read about all these famous traders doing a lot of backtesting before trading real money or client money.  But how could I do it without paying an arm and a leg?

Other Backtesting Solutions

Don’t get me wrong, when I was looking around, there were a few really good systems out there for doing backtesting.  The trouble was that they either only did automated tests, were really expensive, or had a monthly subscription fee.  I would have been in the hole a several hundred to a few thousand dollars before I was able to come up with a trading technique that would actually start making money.

My Big Ah-ha!

Then I went to a Rob Booker workshop and he told us that he considered himself a full-time backtester and a part-time currency trader.  Many of his most successful students and himself included, were successful because they did a TON of backtesting.  Interesting, I might be in the right place…

And as it turns out, I was.  He had found this program called Forex Tester and it is how he and his students tested trading strategies to find trading techniques that worked best for them.  I was so excited that as soon as I got home from the class, I downloaded the program.   It definitely lived up to my expectations.

Here are just a few of the features:

• The program is very affordable!  It is just a one time fee, NO monthly billing!  At the time of this writing, it only costs $150.  I wouldn’t be able to even buy the historical data for other programs or other subscription based forex backtesting software programs would only allow me to backtest for 1-2 months for that amount of money.
  
• You can add your own custom indicators (you can either find them online, program them in or find a programmer to do it for you)
• You can see multiple time frames individually or you can have multiple time frames up at once.
• You can get free, high quality historical data to test with directly from their website.
• The program allows you to not only have multiple windows open with different time frames in the same currency, but you can have multiple windows with different currencies.  This will allow you do test for market correlations or practice hedging techniques.
• You can save your testing projects for review later.
• After you are done testing, you can double click each trade in the history log and the program will automatically move the chart to that trade.  You can then scrutinize your trades and find any common elements that can make you more profitable.
• You can try this forex back testing software for free before you buy.
  
• You can write notes on every trade so you can go back later and sort your trades by type.
• You can export your trade log for analysis in Excel or any other program.
• The program keeps a running total of several important metrics like: largest winner/loser, winning percentage, max drawdown, etc.
• And much more!

The best part about this software is that now I don’t have to take someone’s word that a trading technique works, I can test it for myself.  You can get more information and a free trial download of Forex Tester by clicking here.

Finding Things to Test

You don’t have any strategies to test you say?  There are many places that you can find strategies to test.   There is no shortage of people on the internet wanting to teach you the latest and greatest systems.  But do they live up to the hype?  Now you can test them yourself and find out.  If nothing else, you can get ideas that serve as a starting point for developing your own individual trading technique. Here are a few free sources to get you started:

• Forex Factory
• Baby Pips
• FX Street

Will this software guarantee your success?  No, nothing is a guarantee, but if you put the time in to test and practice you will start to get a feel for the market and how different trading techniques work.  It can go a long way to helping you be confident in taking trades and staying in trades, I continue to use it as my #1 trading tool.

How Do You Backtest?

Click here to see ForexTester Videos on how to install and start testing strategies right away!

Hope that helps!
Hugh

P.S. – They raised the price recently, so be sure to get it before they raise it again!

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like:

1. Demo Trading and Back Testing
2. Rob Booker Workshop
3. Going to Rob Booker’s Seminar in Hawaii!
4. Demo Trading
5. Currency Trader Magazine