AtoZ Markets - Stock backtesting method how much profit you can make from a trading strategy with detailed statistics like risk: reward, drawdown, and winning ratio. There is a lot of backtesting tool available on the internet, but all of them are not effective. Identifying the effective one is the key to make a consistently profitable trading strategy.
Why is stock backtesting software necessary?
We know that without backtesting, it is impossible to test a trading strategy with real money as it requires a lot of time and effort. For a trader, it is very time-consuming to invest the valuable time in backtesting rather than implementing the trading strategy to make it better.
It would be beneficial for a trader to see how the trading strategy works in the last five years without spending time in the day to day activity.
In early 1980, people used to backtest trading strategies by using a paper and pen. Later on, in the 1990s, with the introduction of Computer monitors, people were able to backtest in a digital form.
In the present world, MetaQuotes Ltd. brought the revolutionary Mt4 and Mt5 trading platform. Most of the professional and individual use these trading platforms as it is sophisticated and easy to use. There is a way to backtest stop strategies using the MetaTrader 5 strategy tester is one of the top 5 stock backtesting software.
Before moving to the step-by-step approach of backtesting stock strategies using Mt5 strategy tester, let's look at what the backtesting is.
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What is Backtesting?
Backtesting is a process to check the performance of a trading strategy in the historical data. It is a vital tool for a trader's toolbox, without which they wouldn't even consider diving into the market. It is essential to analyze the market before purchasing anything. Similarly, before implementing a trading strategy into the real chart, it is necessary to see how it works at different times and market conditions.
Finding the right stock backtesting software is crucial for every new trader as it will save money and time. We have done an extensive analysis of stock backtesting software. We will represent the trading view from the top 5 stock backtesting software in the following section.
Tradingview As a Backtesting Softwares
There is a lot of backtesting software available on the internet. Some software is free to use but does not provide adequate capacity for backtesting. On the other hand, some software is paid and very useful.
Tradingview was launched in 2011. It is a secure and web-based platform for stock and forex backtesting. The real-time data and mostly accurate price charts make it possible to research the market from anywhere.
They have implemented backtesting effortlessly and intuitively. This backtesting software is capable for entry-level traders. If you want to know details- you can refer to the Tradingview Backtesting software.
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MT5 Strategy Tester As a Stock Backtesting Software
The strategy tester software is a tool to test expert advisors before implementing them for live trading. A strategy tester is a multi-currency tool; therefore, you can check the trading strategies of many shares and stocks. Furthermore, it is a multi-threaded tool that allows you to use all the available computer resources. As a result, you will get a detailed and friendly result to justify the trading strategy.
We will see a step-by-step approach regarding how you can backtest stock strategies using this tool:
Choose The Expert Advisor To Test
The expert Advisors are available on the "navigation" tab. You can choose the one from them. Later on, right-click and select the "test" option.
You should open all available instruments from the symbol tab if you want to taste it on multiple stocks and currencies.
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Choosing Testing Parameters
After selecting the test option, a box will appear, and you should choose the testing period and mode of it. You can edit all the available information based on your requirement.
Furthermore, you can input parameters to control the expert advisor's behavior on different market conditions and various financial instruments. You can also use different stop loss and take profits and read the values of indicators.
Starting the Test
To start the testing, on then click the "Start" option from the "Settings" tab. Therefore, the testing progress will be displayed on the left side.
Testing Report
You can see the detailed testing report from the result, which includes profit and number of trades as well as the performance of the robot. There are some additional charge visualization and analytical reports divided into days or months, depending on your trading strategy. You can see the testing graph from the graph tab.
Conclusion
MetaTrader 5 strategy tester is an excellent tool if you want to focus on trading with automated function. With this function on, you can backtest any built-in expert advisor or build your expert advisor based on the stock performance. In the MetaTrader 5 platform, there are enormous numbers of trading instruments from forex, stocks, cryptocurrencies, and indices, which allow you to diversify your trading strategies performance.
Make sure to backtest for more than two years to achieve a better result as we know that the global economy goes through some recession or boom phase. Therefore, in some years there might be a good movement in the stock, but later years it might not work as before. Thus, selecting more than two or even five years of testing allows you to cover all types of market conditions in your trading strategy.