FX Backtesting Question

strw23 · Apr 22, 2006

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Hello All

I have been trading CFD's for a while and I would like to eventually get into Forex. I was looking at some charts the other day and came across a problem I was wondering if someone could help me with.

My understanding is that when you are given a currency pair the price is in the second currency eg AUD/USD $0.75 meaning it only takes US$0.75 to buy A$1.00.

I currently use Metastock 9.EOD and Tradesim so the question I have is when I now look at GBP/JPY 202.40 meaning it takes 202.40 yen to buy 1 pound. This price and chart are not in AUS$ and obviously dont work when I try to run a simulation in Tradesim because it sees 202.40 and assumes it is dollars. This especially becomes a problem when I try running a simulation on multiple currencies.

How do other people get around this and do their testing?

Scott

strw23 · Apr 25, 2006

Hello again,
Is there no one here who is willing to help. Obviously a lot of people here trade fx, how do you do your backtesting with all the different currencies thats all I want to know, no system secrets. I have posted this question on other forums but nobody ever seems to be able to help. I thought this would be the place.

Scott

dealer · Apr 25, 2006

We currently do all our backtesting (including FX) in Excel.

You could generate your "signals" in metastock in the form of an exploration and then copy/paste into excel. Obviously a batch programming type software (such as winbatch) would help automate the process.

FXTrader888 · Apr 25, 2006

What i do the back test is using Intellichart. Which is quite good about their back tick test lab software. however, their scripting is not that powerful, so if you h ave some complicated strategy want to run, you better do it manually with it historical data.

strw23 · Apr 25, 2006

Thanks both for your reply, I will check them out.

scott

Buxx · Apr 28, 2006

Quote from strw23:

Hello again,
Is there no one here who is willing to help. Obviously a lot of people here trade fx, how do you do your backtesting with all the different currencies thats all I want to know, no system secrets. I have posted this question on other forums but nobody ever seems to be able to help. I thought this would be the place.

Scott

try metatrader4 from www.metaquotes.net
it is integrated all-in-one solution (charting, datafeed, backtester)
and it's free

dealer · Apr 28, 2006

Quote from Buxx:

try metatrader4 from www.metaquotes.net
it is integrated all-in-one solution (charting, datafeed, backtester)
and it's free

These types of platforms may be fine for testing short term strategies but how on earth can you test positions trading strategies where the net interest rate carry *can* become an issue?

Buxx · Apr 28, 2006

Quote from dealer:

These types of platforms may be fine for testing short term strategies but how on earth can you test positions trading strategies where the net interest rate carry *can* become an issue?

have you tried it on your own?
metatrader does count in backtests overnight interests as well