This screen shows the results of your trading strategy after the calculations are finished computing.

If at any time during backtest calculations, you want to abort, press the Abort button. After backtesting has been aborted, you may do any of the following:

• Press the Rebacktest button to restart the backtesting.
• Press the Back button to modify the trading strategy.
• Press the Cancel button to exit the trading strategy wizard without saving any results.
• Press the minimize icon at the top right corner of the wizard to minimize the entire NeuroShell Trader application. Doing so will allow you to work with other programs during backtesting. Note that using the Show Desktop Windows task bar icon, typically located next to the Windows Start button, will also minimize the NeuroShell Trader application.

(DayTrader Only) During market hours, optimization and backtesting may be much slower if processor time is being utilized to update charts with real-time data. Use the “Don’t update chart while optimizing/backtesting” check box to turn off the real-time updating chart during optimization/backtesting.

After all backtest calculations have finished, you may do any of the following:

• Sort the results list by clicking on the column header by which the list should be sorted. Clicking once will sort the list in ascending order based upon the values in that column. Clicking a column header a second time will sort the list in descending order based upon the values in that column.
• Press the Rebacktest button to restart the backtesting.

If you are optimizing, you will be given the choice to optimize starting at the last optimal settings, reoptimize starting from scratch, or simply rebacktest with the last optimal settings (no optimization occurs).

• Press the Finished button to end the wizard and add the trading strategy to your chart. (Power User only) When backtesting or optimizing multiple templates at once, each templates results will have a check box. You must check one or more of the templates that you want to be added to the chart before pressing the Finished button.

• Press the Back button to modify the trading strategy.
• Press the Cancel button to exit the trading strategy wizard without saving any results.
• Press the Detailed Analysis button to view detailed analysis of the selected trading strategy.
• Press the Save as Template button to save the trading strategy as a new trading strategy template. Saving the trading strategy as a template allows you to apply the same trading strategy to different charts without having to recreate the analysis from scratch.
• Press the Print button to print a copy of the trading strategy.

The columns and statistics that are displayed can be customized in the Results Screen Columns section of the Trading Strategy Wizard Interface Options. Press the Options button to change the Trading Strategy Wizard Interface Options. For more information see Trading Strategy Wizard Interface Options.

Notes:

• It should be understood that trading can result in losses, and that past performance of a trading system is no guarantee of future performance.

• NeuroShell Trader defaults to displaying an annualized percent return in the results summary (unless you changed the optimization objective function). If you are using a small backtest period, keep in mind that the percentage shown is an annualized return. For instance, if the NeuroShell Trader displays an annualized return of 1000% across a one week backtest, the actual return was approximately 20% for the week. (DayTrader Only) In the NeuroShell DayTrader, the difference becomes even greater. For example, a 1000% annualized return across a one day backtest is approximately a 4% return for the day.
• (DayTrader Only) The Start Date corresponds to the date/time of the first bar in the backtest. It should be noted that a bar’s time is when the bar is complete and not when the bar started.

For example, on a 30 minute chart, the 10:00am bar contains all the price action from 9:30am to 10:00am. If the Start Date was at 10:00am, then the 10:00am bar was the first bar used for backtesting and therefore the backtest includes price action starting at 9:30am.

• Trading Strategies play sound files or show pop-up order messages (for example: Buy 100 Shares of Dell) when a new order is generated. Only active trading strategies will play sound files or show pop-up order messages.

When a new Trading Strategy is added to a chart, it is automatically activated. To deactivate or reactivate a trading strategy, select the Alerts and Orders Window menu item from the View menu.

To change the sound and pop-up message options, select the Options menu item from the Tools Menu. If the Play Sound File option is selected, then the selected sound will play whenever an active trading strategy generates a trading order. If the Popup Order Message option is selected, a pop-up order notification message will appear whenever an active trading strategy generates a trading order.

• During Optimization, if distributed optimization or network optimization is being performed, the label beside the progress percent bar will also display the number of threads/cores being utilized by the optimization. To see details of how the optimization is being distributed, double click on the label showing the number of threads/cores being utilized to display the Distributed Processing Control Panel. The Distributed Processing Control Panel shows the computer, individual count, total %, average time, last count, last % and last time for each processor. Distributed optimization can be turned on or off using the Distributed Optimization tab of the Options Dialog accessed from the Tools menu in the main NeuroShell Trader menus. For more information about distributed processing see Options – Distributed Optimization

 
Topic of Interest:
What are Trading Strategies?
Trading Objective Functions