Start a session
A backtest session is set up on the New Session page. Quickstart gets you trading in four short steps. Advanced adds margin, trading costs, slippage and risk rules for a stricter test. Backtesting is on every plan.
Start with Quickstart
Open Tools → Backtest and click New session. The New Session page opens on Quickstart.
Under Instruments, click What do you want to trade? and pick one or more markets, such as BTC and ETH.
Check the History row. It shows the dates every instrument you picked has data for. A session can only run inside that shared window.
Under Session, type a Name and choose the Start: Random date or Fixed date.
Under Timing, set when the session ends (see below) and a real-time Duration if you want a time limit. Unlimited has none; the options run from 5 minutes to 4 hours.
Under Account, set the starting Balance. It is 100,000 unless you change it, in USD.
Click Start session at the top right.
The Session, Timing and Account steps stay locked until you pick an instrument.
Random or fixed start
With Random date, Chartnaut picks a Monday at random inside the shared history. Turn on End after and set Simulated to how much market time the session covers, such as 5 Days. Units run from Minutes to Months. Because you did not pick the day, you cannot remember what happened, and that is the point.
With Fixed date, choose the day in From. Turn on Until to pick an End date; leave it off to trade on as long as you like.
Either way, the session opens at 07:00 UTC on its start day.
Tighten it with Advanced
Click Advanced. General holds the same settings as Quickstart, and four more tabs sit beside it:
Tab | What you set | Default |
|---|---|---|
Margin | One leverage for everything, or Per market by asset class | Per market |
Commissions | Trading costs as a Fixed amount, a Percentage or By asset class | On, by asset class |
Conditions | Slippage: moves each entry price by an Amount, so fills are less perfect | Off |
Risk rules | Max drawdown, Daily loss, Position size and Open positions | All off |
Risk rules are for prop-style discipline. Breaking any rule you switch on ends the session there and then. Set Max drawdown and Daily loss to your prop firm's limits and the backtest tells you whether your trading would have passed.
What happens next
Chartnaut opens Charts in Replay on the start date, with the replay controls on the chart. Trade from the Position Manager as you would live: see Trading from the chart. To file each trade into a playbook as you take it, follow Backtest on random days.
To carry on later, open the session from Tools → Backtest and click Play. The pencil beside a session's name renames it, and the trash button on its page deletes it.
When it will not start
Start session stays greyed out while the page shows a message in amber. The common ones:
The selected instruments do not share an overlapping historical window. Remove the market with the shortest history. Click the History row: Tightest names it.
The selected random duration does not fit inside the shared coverage window. Shorten Simulated.
A balance that does not cover the margin on a market you picked. Raise Balance, or give that market more leverage on the Margin tab.
How far back you can go depends on your plan: the last 3 years on Free and Starter, all available history on Pro and Ultra. See Historical data.