Urgent Backtesting Help Needed

[broker1107]

I'm not sure I have the settings correct for backtesting my Forex strategy. If I manually go through the trades and write down the results from the chart, I could figure out how many pips I gained or lost. Then, I can figure out based on the leverage used and # of lots traded what my gain would be.

However, in the backtesting mode, it will tell me that the formula is profitable, but it will say it was up $29.13 let's say. So, on an intitial $100,000 account, it would have been up $100,029.13. The numbers are all skewed.

Can someone help me get the correct settings? Also, how do you go back in time to backtest for say 1 year or 2 years or specific dates? Thanks.

[ACM]

broker1107
In the Strategy Analyzer window click on the Settings icon and then in the Settings window insert the appropriate Point Value for the security you are back testing.
With regards to going back 1 or 2 years it depends on what interval you are referring to. If intraday then eSignal provides up to a maximum of 120 days of data, if daily or higher then you can access (in general) up to 10+ years of data. To define how far back you want to back test use the Time Template to load the required amount of data in the chart.
Alex

[ACM]

broker1107
With regards to back testing specific dates the Strategy Analyzer does not provide that option so you will need to code that functionality in your script. You can find an example of how it can be done in this post
Alex

[Dug]

contract sizes

Hi. i seem to be missing something regards the Backtesting settings.
i have written an EFS that buys and sells, but when doing the backtesting, the numbers also dont make sense.
I am trading equities, and the prices are showing 25.01 in my price axis, meaning $25.01
each tick is worth one cent.
in the Backtesting settings i have my Point Value at $1 (it does not allow anything less.) With the equity at $100,000.
The numbers it gives back seem nonsense. though the stragtegy (being trend trading) works over a period the Equity curve and other info only shows it makes $1000. and the contracts traded each time are only 100.
do i have to do an equity calculation within the EFS to determine a different amount of contracts to buy/sell each time, or is there some setting on the Backtesting setting that i'm missing.
thanks.

[ACM]

Dug

do i have to do an equity calculation within the EFS to determine a different amount of contracts to buy/sell each time, or is there some setting on the Backtesting setting that i'm missing.

You have both methods available ie you can either determine the number of shares traded each time in the context of your script or set a fixed amount in the Strategy Analyzer.
You may want to read the Introduction to Strategy Analyzer and the Introductory Guide to Back Testing and Strategy Analyzer which are provided in the EFS KnowledgeBase in the Help Guides and Tutorials folder. Also see the articles specific to the Strategy Analyzer 2.0
Alex