Hello!
Hope your trading week has been a good one.
It’s now time for another update in my backtesting series.
A quick heads up: Next week I am going on holiday so there will be no Weekly Overview blog post next weekend (Sat 11th Oct 2025).
Backtesting Progression
This week, I really pushed myself to aim for my daily limit of backtested days (5 tested days per day). I have tested 2 and a bit weeks of April, bringing me to the 18th with a total of 59 trades logged for the year so far.
(I also went a bit further so keep reading 😃)
April has been a tricky month as there’s been a lot of low probability setups and that’s dragged down my total return.
This isn’t bad news, as it means I can clearly see what is a bad environment for my strategy and easily identify that in the live markets. Which, in turn, helps me save and therefore make more money.
Results measured in R (R = % gained).
You may have also noticed that I have started filling in data for 2025.
The reason for this is because I would like to get back into live trading again and to do so with this strategy, I would like to have more recent data on the current market volatility.
So, with 2023 results, and 2025 results thus far, I’m sitting at:
- 65 total trades
- 38.46% strike rate
- 42.5% return
That’s extremely good considering I am taking every setup that presents itself.
So why the change to 2025? Well, let me tell you below.
Mindset
Throughout my trading career, I have experienced these moments in time where I feel like no-ones at the helm of the ship, I’m just drifting around.
These moments have gotten a lot less frequent over the years as I continue to review and see what causes them and how I can escape that feeling.
They used to be very frequent before I joined Photon, as I used to get distracted by what other peoples trading systems were performing like and seeing them do so well whilst I was in drawdown misery.
Since I have been at Photon, I’ve only had it a handful of times.
- The 1st time was when I traded their older entry models without backtesting, I didn’t accept that I needed to, ego ruled my trading world. Realising this sent me down that same mental feeling, so I jumped to their newer entry model.
- 2nd time was after spending an unacceptable amount of time backtesting it, thinking I knew it, getting burned by it, and ultimately not liking it (personally wasn’t a fan of it at the start anyway as it just didn’t suit me)
- The 3rd time was this week, and the reason for it was that I was worried about how someone could actually live off their trading income and if it’s really worth all this effort I am putting in.
However, after a conversation with myself in my ‘pen & paper’ journal and running the numbers, I got back on my feet again.
I think this feeling crept up this time because despite the fact I have seen profitability, I’ve never seen profitability through a system that I have tested and put effort into prior to trading it live. I’m scared that all this effort I am putting in might lead me down the paths of all the other systems.
No! This time will be different, because I am doing it how you are supposed to! With an actual tested edge and understanding of the system.
My plan to trade live won’t be my final variation, I will drop my risk to 0.1% per trade using Magic Keys, so that my capital is safe but I can get a real understanding of how this strategy will perform in a live market, whilst keeping tabs on my own emotional performance too.
Trading Corner
As this is part of the Backtesting Series, I am going to mention FXReplay once again.
A really cool statistic it shows is how much time you have invested in backtesting.
It doesn’t just count time for when you have the tab open and doing something else on your computer, it only counts time for when you are actively engaging in charting on FXReplay.
For September, I totalled up 23.92 hours of backtesting time. This is an all time record for me, beating my 2025 average (testing my old system) by 16.7 hours.
Hopefully, I can aim for at least 20 hours each month because that’s a huge quantity of data per month meaning I can get a real idea of how my strategy performs.
Key Takeaway for the Week
This week reminded me that doubt only grows in the absence of clarity. Once you face it head on (with data, honest reflection, and a solid plan), it loses its power.
Backtesting doesn’t just test a strategy; it tests you. Every trader hits moments where they question if it’s all worth it, but those moments are turning points. They either break you or build you.
As long as you’re still testing, refining, reflecting, and believing in your processes, you’re already winning.
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If you found this week’s breakdown useful, share it with another trader who’s deep in their own backtesting. Real progress starts when we all trade with data, not doubt.
If you want to try the tools & course I’ve mentioned for yourself, here are the links:
