How do you speed up your e-learning by at least 1,200 times today?

It's no secret that learning is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. However, scientific progress does not stand still, and with the advent of computers mankind in general and traders in particular have a lot of opportunities, which previously could only be dreamed of. Now traders can use all the power of computer analysis to get superfast and incredibly accurate results.

The real revolution in trading was the emergence of special programs designed to test both manual strategies and Expert Advisors on historical data.

How the strategy tester works

1. The trader downloads the program,
2. Loads historical data on the desired broker,
3. Chooses the date from which he wants to start the test (for example, February 2, 2006).

Once these preparatory moments are over, the trader finds himself in an extremely interesting situation. On the one hand, the trainee is in the past and observes quite old quotes. On the other hand, to the right of the desired date is an impenetrable void.

Being in this situation, the trader can test his understanding of the market and his trading strategy extremely quickly.

For example, my analysis of the current position, based on the chart patterns, tells me that a "head and shoulders" pattern has been formed. Just to simplify things, let's imagine that I am not interested in anything else to make a buy or sell decision, only in the presence of chart figures. Next, my system requires that I set a sell stop below the support level, as well as set a stop loss and take profit of 100 and 200 pips, respectively.

And now the magic begins: pressing just one button leads to the fact that in about 5 seconds the program manages to draw about 100 candlesticks of historical data and automatically closes the transaction (in our case it happened on a stop loss, because the price has not reached only 7 points to take profit - marked with a blue line).

How long would it take a trader to execute the same trade in real time? Let's calculate together: 100 candlesticks * 4 hours = 400 hours (or almost 17 trading days, i.e. approximately 23 calendar day).

5 seconds or 23 days?

Of course, not every trader uses the 4-hour timeframe. But even if your ideal time frame is M1, to pass 100 candles on the history the program will need the same 5 seconds, while on the demo it will take 100 minutes (6000 seconds), which is 1200 times longer! Testing strategies on weekly charts will save you a lot of years life.

Again, no one is stopping us from opening a new trade as soon as the previous one is closed, if your trading system requires it. That way you can spend as little as 1 evening testing your strategies and immediately find out if the strategy is profitable and therefore worth using in a real account. Or you can spend months or even years to do exactly the same testing on a demo or live account.

One evening on the tester or six months on a demo/real account

Some traders argue that historical data is the past, the market is changing, and you shouldn't blindly trust what worked before. But after all, the six months in which you checked the data on the demo is also history, but, nevertheless, you will rely on it in your analysis.

If your competitors started testing their strategies six months ago and you didn't, you can catch up with them very quickly and then overtake them. It took them: 6 months * 30 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes = 259,200 minutes.

Also in defense of testing on historical data we can say the following: If your strategy does not work on historical data, then it certainly will not work in the real market. Therefore, you at least get a chance to identify a losing strategy and in no case do not go to the real market with it - thus you save your money.

So, on a quality tester program it will take you at least 1,200 times less time to test your strategy, viz: 259 200 / 1 200 = 216 minutes (only 3 and a half hours, or the evening of one working day). If you select the time frame H1 - it will take 216 / 60 = 3 and a half minutes + some time to stop the test, analyze and decide (this component is impossible to predict, because it varies from trader to trader). And once again let's remind ourselves of the nerves and money saved...

What testing software should I choose?

In this article, we showed you how strategy-testing programs can save you time and effort, allowing you to gain an advantage over traders who came to the market before you did. We suggest that you do your own research on which program is best suited for you.

There are both free and paid programs on the market with significantly enhanced features. To write this article we used the program Forex Tester.

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