Understanding Results
How to read and interpret your backtest performance report.
The backtest report contains everything you need to evaluate your strategy's historical performance. Here's a guide to the main sections.
Performance Summary
The summary card shows headline metrics at a glance: total return, number of trades, win rate, profit factor, and maximum drawdown. These give you a quick read on whether the strategy is worth further investigation.
Equity Curve
The equity curve plots your portfolio value over time. Look for a steady upward trend with controlled drawdowns. A jagged or declining curve indicates problems.
Trade List
Every simulated trade is listed with entry time, exit time, direction (long/short), entry price, exit price, profit/loss, and the reason for exit (take profit, stop loss, or signal). Use this to verify the strategy is trading as you intended.
Monthly Returns
A heatmap showing monthly returns helps you identify seasonal patterns and periods where the strategy struggled. Consistent positive months across different years is a good sign.
Don't just look at the total return. A strategy with a 100% return but a 60% drawdown is much riskier than one with a 50% return and a 15% drawdown.