One of the key aspects of trading is to experiment with your strategy, but how do you go about doing this? This article discusses four important steps to take: Test it until you don’t want to test it anymore, Backtest it, Adapt it and Document your results. Listed below are these steps:
Test it until you no longer want to test it
Backtesting your trading strategy is essential for making necessary adjustments. Fortunately, this process isn’t complicated. You can use spreadsheet applications to backtest trading strategies. In addition to backtesting, you can create customized versions of pre-built strategies to execute against different data sets. These customized strategies are saved and can be reused across sessions or applied to a test.
First, create a trading strategy with specific parameters, such as stop loss instruction, trailing stop loss instruction, take profit level, timeframe, and risk per trade. Next, create a backtest data set based on your financial market and select a chart that you would like to trade. Make sure to use the same time frame each time to avoid bias. Then, begin looking for past trades.
Backtest it
Before implementing any trading strategy in the real world, it is critical to backtest it first. By backtesting, you can see whether your trading strategy is actually performing well or not. You must also consider the costs associated with your strategy. While your trading strategy might be profitable without any costs, it may not be the best option in the long run. If you do not want to risk a lot of money, you can try backtesting your strategy.
Whether you’re using a backtesting program or writing your own, a trading strategy requires some kind of programming. There are many languages available, and each has its pros and cons. Python is a free, open-source language that has a huge library for virtually any task. It is also a specialized research environment, making it a good choice for low to medium-frequency trading. While there are other options, Python is best suited for low-frequency trading.
Adapt it
One of the primarily important aspects of effective trading is the ability to adapt to the ever-changing market environment. In addition to utilizing multiple playbooks, traders should always backtest their strategies to keep their edge. A successful backtest will increase your confidence to experiment with different strategies and prevent you from making costly mistakes related to trading psychology.
Document results
To make the most of your strategy, you must decide which financial market to test and which chart timeframe you’ll use for the experiments. You should also decide how long you’ll collect your results. Different time periods will provide different results. Once you’ve decided, you can start searching for trades in the past and recording their results. Once you have all of your data, you can then start comparing the results of different periods to make a final conclusion.
