Manual Backtesting, Taken Seriously
The knowledge base for CFD & forex traders who want backtest results they can trust — with the costs, data quality, and statistics that other guides skip.
What This Site Covers That Others Don't
Most backtesting guides stop at "replay the chart, write down your trades." Then traders go live and watch backtest profits evaporate. The difference is almost always one of three things: trading costs that were never modeled (spread, swap, commission), data that couldn't show what really happened (OHLC candles instead of ticks, wrong timezone settings), or statistics too thin to mean anything (20 trades is not a backtest).
Every guide here is written for CFD and forex traders, cites its sources, and shows worked numbers. Where we recommend tools — including the free ones — we tell you exactly what they do and don't do.
The Six Guides
Six pillars, each expanding into detailed deep dives.
Manual Backtesting: The Complete Guide
What manual backtesting is, how to do it step by step, how many trades you need, and the mistakes that quietly invalidate results.
Read the guide →The True Cost of a Trade: Modeling Costs in Backtests
Spread, swap, commission, leverage, slippage — how each one eats backtest profits, with worked numbers nobody else publishes.
Read the guide →Backtesting Data Quality: The Foundation Everything Sits On
Tick vs OHLC, broker feed differences, GMT/DST traps, gaps and rollovers — the data layer that decides whether your results mean anything.
Read the guide →Backtesting Methodology & Statistics
Testable rules, bias control, sample size, expectancy, drawdown — how to run a manual backtest you can actually trust.
Read the guide →Manual Backtesting Tools Compared (2026)
An honest comparison of replay and backtesting tools — including which “free” tools are genuinely free and which are trial funnels.
Read the guide →Backtesting for Prop Firm Challenges
Simulate the firm’s rules — daily loss limits, trailing drawdown, consistency — and build a statistical track record before paying for a challenge.
Read the guide →New to Backtesting? Start Here
- 1
Learn the method — what manual backtesting is and how to run a test that means something.
- 2
Account for real costs — spread, swap, and commission turn many "winning" backtests into losers.
- 3
Practice on real tick data — open a free replay of EUR/USD in the browser and apply what you learned.
Backtest on Real Bid/Ask Ticks — Free
StrategyTune replays real tick-by-tick quotes for 70+ forex pairs, indices, commodities and crypto in your browser. No registration, no downloads. Spread is in the data, so your fills are realistic.
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