https://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/10/backtesting-walkforward-important-correlation.asp
I'm a big fan on doing both backtesting and forward testing (simulator trade journal) to look for correlation between the two involving your trade strategy. Yet, if you're under time restraint and/or afraid to get suck down the rabbit hole of curve fitting...looks like forward testing is the solution.
Personally, I put more merits on forward testing than backtesting even though I have the opinion that forward testing is much more time consuming than backtesting. Also, I don't view backtesting as a way to try to determine if there's an edge. Instead, I view backtesting as a way to determine the weakness of a trade strategy.
Regardless, trade journal thread @
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/forums/journals.29/
Yet, I strongly recommend that when you start a trade journal (forward testing)...do such via a professional trade journal software because it will automatic do the hard work for you involving the quantitative statistical analysis of your trading.
It will help you make adjustments in your trade strategy and in your trading plan yet my view of a trading plan involves more personal routine that impacts your trade performance whereas to people like NoDoji viewed a trading plan strictly from the point of view as an objective approach to managing a trade strategy.
Thus, a trading plan gets more into the trader character and how the person's life outside of trading impacts the trading. For example, maybe you discover that most of your profits or best trades occur while you're at work (another job). You then need determine what adjustments you need to make in your trading routine (work schedule...personal life) to be able to trade your strategy when its at its best.
Another example, you backtest many different trading products and the results determine Eurex Dax Futures are profitable with your strategy but the Emini Futures which you prefer to trade is not profitable via your trade strategy.
You then need to determine how you can trade the Eurex DAX futures without messing up your daily routine. I bring this up because its very common to trade what's popular to you, what's popular at a discussion forum instead of trading a product you're best suited to trade.
There's a old thread here at ET where some guy backtested his strategy on many assets (trading products)...energy futures, index futures, metal futures, agriculture futures and so on.
He discover his strategy doesn't work on the Emini Futures but instead he's profitable on Metal futures. Simply, he had to make a decision to either make money via trading something that he doesn't like
or keep hammering at something that he's losing money / prefer to trade. Another example, some here at this forum determine they're more suitable to trading Options in comparison to the products they initially begin their trading career.
I saw the above again in a CME Group trading challenge. A buddy of mine enter the challenge and was breakeven in a few early trades while trading the Emini NQ futures...very similar like results as his real money trades.
He then saw many on the leaderboard trading different trading products than his Emini NQ futures. It was only a simulator trading competition so he decided to change trading products to Palladium (PA) metal futures...he almost won the darn competition.
Afterwards, he backtested his strategy on PA futures and others...discover he was a profitable trader. He's been doing well in his real money trading ever since. That's another example to show a change in the trading plan whereas the trade strategy remained exactly the same to show the difference between a trade strategy versus a trading plan.
Thus, when your trading plan concentrates only on the strategy and one specific trading product...its really just the trade strategy. Yet, when you think outside the box of your trade strategy...you're now getting into the trading plan.
wrbtrader