Where do I go to back test strategies?

Hey everyone,

First of MANY posts here, so let's get it on! Ok, first time out, did ok,,,,,for about 20 minutes, and then burn and crash. Woke up next morning with half my equity....promising I wouldn't repeat the same mistakes that got me in the mess the day before, and wiped that out too.

Here's my question: WHERE CAN I GO TO BACKTEST STRATEGIES and HOW MUCH DOES THAT SERVICE COST??? I am going to get back in the game but this time out, I'm going to be more prepared, better disciplined and have a stronger game plan. It starts with psychology, but for me, I'd like to improve on strategy.

Thanks for your help.
Welcome to the jungle...

TheHun

Welcome to FF, you will find a lot of information here on trading. You might like to go through the material in the beginner’s forum. I would assume that these losses were on a demo account??

As far as back testing goes MetaTrader offers a Strategy Tester this allows you to write your strategy in MQL then test it. I would suggest you download MetaTrader 4 from here and start playing around with it.

Best of luck

you don't need to pay anyone to make test a strategy. Look in the beginner's forum and pick out one of the strategies there. To back test, it just mean looking at historical data to test how well a particular game plan work.

Try http://www.robbooker.com/ 5/13/62 EMA cross strategy. Plot exponential moving average with period 5, another with 13 and another for 62 EMA. To back test this strategy, look at the past for crosses of those lines and you should have a better idea of when to BUY or SELL. Oh, try plotting those lines on different time frame and see which is best for you.

back testing is worthless....

Dont even waste your time. Forward test only. It is the only way to test and mod an EA or system.

I'm sorry have to jump in and disagree that forward testing is the only way to go. Yes, backtesting is imperfect, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful. Forward testing can take a long time, what if you test something for a year then it fails? Then you have to completely start over again, whereas I can backtest 100 systems in that time over ten years worth of data, and then start forward testing ones that look promising.

Hope this is helpful to new traders.

Cory

i would disagree,

mechanical strategies will get you bad results

learn to trade.

i can recommend some post to read

look up crusial point, he has a great post,(might be in the trash but you could still read it)

FTI this guy is great, really learn his teachings before you go blow your account

james 16

look at some post Custos replies to, he says knowledgeable comments

chicky is opened a thread as well.

learn to trade systems suck.

Both types of strategies can work. I have studied a lot of discretionary methods and they can work well if you learn them well, but so can mechanical strategies.

I personally trade a mechanical strategy that I came up with that did really well in backtesting, and have been trading it profitably for about a year and a half with small drawdowns and decent returns. (Please don't ask, it's not for sale, and I don't feel like giving details so everyone can shout "BS" because they haven't found a profitable way to trade).

My point is, Redlion, I'm glad you are doing well with discretionary strategies but I don't like how people can be so closed-minded and say mechanical strategies can't work, just because they haven't found one that works.

Cheers and I hope you have continued success with your trading.

Cory