Practise with pretend money

The problem

A test on past prices can be shaped, knowingly or not, by the past it was run on. Change a rule after seeing its result a few times and it fits that past a little more each time.

The only prices a rule cannot have been fitted to are the ones that have not happened yet. Following it with pretend money shows what it does with them, without putting anything at risk.

Step by step

1. 1

   Test the rule first

   Run it in the Strategy Agent, or open a strategy you saved.

2. 2

   Press the button under the result

   In What next, press "Track it with pretend money". Nothing starts until you do, and it costs no tokens.

3. 3

   It starts today

   The rule starts with 100,000 pretend US dollars. None of the test's past figures carry over.

4. 4

   It follows the rule each trading day

   Each US trading day it holds what the rule says, at that day's prices, with trading costs.

5. 5

   Check that the cash adds up

   Each portfolio shows the starting cash, what was bought and sold, the costs, dividends and interest, and whether they add up to the cash held.

A worked example from a stored test

Start from a stored test: the RSI rule on Tesla ended at £1,527 against £1,357 for simply holding, from £1,000, 6 Oct 2023 to 6 Oct 2026.

Press the button under that result today and a new record begins: the pretend portfolio holds cash or Tesla as the rule says, from today's prices. The past figures above stay with the test and are not part of the record.

• What the Portfolios page then shows for it: its value and its gain, each with the date it is from.
• Whether its cash adds up, as an alert if it does not.
• A figure the service does not send is shown as not available, with the reason, never as zero.

Only 2 round-trip trades in 3 years, so one decision can swing this result. Watching the same rule from today adds a stretch nobody could have fitted it to.

What it cannot tell you

• A few weeks or months of a rule is a short record. It describes those weeks, not the rule's future.
• Tracking follows rules on US-listed shares and funds, in US dollars.
• Pretend orders fill at each day's prices inside Quantis Trade. A broker fills real orders, in whole shares, at its own prices.
• No real money moves, and nothing reaches a broker. Quantis Trade does not place real-money trades.

Try it

Test one of these, then press "Track it with pretend money" under the result.