Paper trading and backtesting: free practice with a trade journal

Paper trading answers a question that otherwise costs real money: does your approach work. A trade is placed from the chart — size, stop and target are set in percent and the levels are dragged with the mouse.

Two modes

• Live market — the trade runs on real quotes in real time. If you are signed in, stop and target are checked on the server, so the position closes even after you shut the tab; as a guest the simulator runs in the browser and needs the tab open.
• Replay — the same trading, but on history: a manual backtest, one candle at a time. Fifty trades can be tested in an evening instead of fifty days of waiting.

Orders

Besides entering at market there is a limit order: you set a price and it waits. Execution is also checked on the server, so it fills while you are away. Active orders and open positions are visible on the chart and in your account.

Journal and statistics

Every closed trade lands in the journal: coin, side, entry, exit and what closed it — stop or target. From that journal we compute what normally has to be assembled by hand:

• Equity curve and total result.
• Win rate and the average result in risk units (avgR).
• Profit factor, average trade, best and worst.
• The longest losing streak — the number that most honestly shows whether you would have held on with real money.
• A breakdown by coin: where your approach works and where it does not.

Why the statistics are separate

Live and replay results never mix — they are separate tabs. Otherwise a hundred quick trades on history would blur the picture of the real market, where you made decisions without knowing what came next.

Questions and answers