Back testing

[abarb]

Hello,

I've been trying to make the back testing funtion work by changing its different settings, but no matter what, the results always come back with zero as the value. Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[ACM]

abarb
The problem may be in the efs you are using. Post it and someone may be able to help.
Alex

[Guest]

Please Post your code and either I or someone else on the board can look at it.

[abarb]

Thanks for your reply guys. Please find attached KAMA, the efs I'm using.

[ACM]

abarb
That efs is not set up for back testing as it has no strategy defined in the script.
Alex

[abarb]

Alex,

Please pardon my lack of knowledge on the subject, but what do you mean by "no strategy defined"

Alejandro

[ACM]

Alejandro
I mean that there are no commands in the efs to Buy, Sell, Cover etc that the Strategy Analyzer then uses to back test the strategy.
For an example of this open the btEMA.efs that is in the BackTesting subfolder of Formulas and you will see how the strategy is defined by those commands.
Alex

[abarb]

I get it,

Thanks a million for your help Alex.

Alejandro

[ACM]

Alejandro
The pleasure is mine.
If you want to read more about defining strategies with efs see the Guide to Developing eSignal Strategies article in the eSignal KnolwledgeBase
Alex

[brisa]

backtesting

Hi, My name is Charles, I'm new to esignal,
I want to know how to make a max profit with backtesting?
What I mean is how to change the parameter of the formula,
let's say the strategy is to buy when the RSI below 20 and sell when the RSI over 80. The default parameter of RSI is let's say 14, I want to backtest using parameter 1 to 50 days, which one is the best. I can do this with tradestation, but how to do this with esignal.

My second question is how to download 1 year data and how to set backtesting parameter, let's say I want the backtesting using only 3 months data.

Please help me, thanks alot.


Charles.

[ACM]

Charles
Optimization is not available at this time in the Strategy Analyzer module. You may want to add yours to the existing requests for this feature by sending an email to [email protected]
With regards to your second question the Strategy Analyzer runs its test by default from the beginning of the charted data to the end. So, to do what you are asking you would need to define in the efs the period that you want tested. For an example of one way to do this see the efs attached to this post
Hope this helps
Alex

[gspiker]

Charles,

Let me add a bit to what Alex's reply.

Alex is correct that there is no builtin method for doing parameter tuning with te backtester, but I have written EFS indicators that tune themselves based on simple P&L and % wins. It takes a few tricks, but it is possible.

You can also check out Divergence Software . Chris has already coded some self optimized studies (including RSI) and is selling them for reasonable prices.

On the question of downloading and time periods to backtest. You might want to check out eSignal's time template concept. The backtester will only test the area specified by the time template. This will not help you if you want to skip recent bars, and only back test say, the first three months of this year. In this case you should look into Alex's solution.

Garth