How to Test Foreign Exchange Systems
Anybody who has been round the forex market for at least a couple of minutes knows that you always need to test foreign exchange systems before you go live with them. Whether or not the system includes guarantees, even if you got it from a top trader who makes millions with it, you have got to know that it'll work for you.
So why do systems like Forex Twister work for some folks and not others? Many folks basically find this quite hard to believe. They imagine there is one perfect system out there that fits everybody and could make us all into millionaires if only we knew how it's possible to get a hold of it. But that idea is a complete fantasy.
There are many reasons why a system might suit some folks and not others. It could involve some talent like translating a complicated mix of indicators that some people will handle with no trouble while others cannot get their heads around it regardless of how hard they try. It may be to do with risk : the system could involve going to an amount of risk which would be way outside some people's's comfort sectors, leading them to either subvert the system or screw up thanks to the level of stress.
So you should test and you can do this in more than one way. The best option is to perform at least two types of testing which you can do at the same time.
First you can use backtesting. Here you take your system and work out on paper how well it would have done on the recent historical market, i.e. The last six months or whatever period you choose. This does not take too much time as you can swiftly scroll through historical charts searching for the signals that would have led you to make a trade if you had been operating your system live at that time.
Backtesting should give you an idea of whether a system has potential. Naturally the market is not going to repeat in precisely the same way so you must take into account the indisputable fact that you might have struck lucky or unlucky and picked a time when the system performed abnormally well or badly.
For this reason, it is best to backtest over the longest possible time and maybe split your tests so that rather than testing, for instance, one whole year when the market should have been especially robust or feeble, take the first quarter of year one, quarter two of year two, etc so you test one 3-month period from each year of four years. This gives you a good period spread without requiring you to cover 4 entire years.
The second way to test forex systems is in a demo account. Here you are dealing with the live market but not using real money. This method is slower because you've got to wait for your signals to come up for real . On the other hand, it simulates real live trading strategies with the possibility of slippage and other factors which are not gong to turn up in back testing.
Remember that you can test many systems at the same time in a demo account, provided you keep separate records of their performance. Or you may use many demo accounts. In this fashion you've got a better chance of ending up with at least one moneymaking system at the end of your period of testing.
Forex demo accounts also have the edge that you are developing your live trading abilities and familiarity with a software platform and charting service at the same time as you are running your tests. This gives you solid real time training to prepare you for the moment when you go live with real cash. Most forex brokers will provide free demo accounts which you can use to check currency exchange systems.
Tags: auto trading, currency trading, expert advisor, Finance, forex robot, forex software, forex trading, forex twister, investing, money
