OK Call it what you will. Not sure what you would call forward testing.
I see a pattern repeat in the market. Time after time when certain criteria are met, the market moves in a predictable direction. Not all the time but often enough that you could say it had a high probability. The next time I see that set-up I put on a trade. Have I back tested?
Or I read that a certain set-up has a high probability of working. I watch for that set-up in real time and once it has proven itself I trade it. Have I back tested?
What I haven't done is gone back in time with any kind of program. A few years ago I tried Vectorvest and there was a backtesting program that I played around with but I never found a strategy that I liked. What I found is that it was too easy to adjust criteria to get to the answer you wanted, but changing the start time or the market didn't give consistent results.
So I'm saying that I haven't used back testing. If experience in the market and using what seems to work is backtesting then I'm guilty of back testing.
A good example intraday is the 10am pivot. The market consistently reverses (or at minimum pulls back from its current trend) at 10am daily, give or take a few minutes.

