Q1.  What type of people benefit from BackTesting Report?

A1.  BackTesting Report is written for the average investor or trader in the US Stock Market.   It has sections for Swing Traders (2 day horizon), Position Traders (4 week horizon), and Active Investors (1 year horizon).    You need to understand what stocks are, how to enter orders at your broker, and have a desire to learn to apply technical strategies.    It helps to have some background knowledge of technical indicators.  An open mind to see what really worked and what didn’t is an absolute requirement.

Q2. Is BackTesting Report for day-traders?

A2. Not really.   BackTesting Report relies on end-of-day data.   Day traders could use the results of BackTesting Report in three ways:  to understand the longer-term trends within which they operate on a daily basis, to see how trading works for people who aren’t glued to the screen all day.  The third way requires a leap of faith to apply the backtesting results to shorter timeframes than they were originally intended.

Q3 Can Buy and Hold Investors use BackTesting Report?

Q3 Definitely.   Even if you never have any intention of selling, you can still benefit by applying a tested strategy to pick a good time to buy stocks.   I encourage all Buy and Hold Investors to also read the issues about exit strategies and sell signals to get ideas about how to preserve profits before the next downturn.

Q4. Is TradeStation or StockFinder required to use BackTesting Report?

A4. No, you don’t need any to buy a tool such as TradeStation or StockFinder.    You can just read the BackTesting Reports by themselves.

Q5. Do you recommend any particular charting/scanning tool?

A5.  Yes, I recommend StockFinder both because I am impressed with its capabilities and because my company is an affiliate that may get paid when new people use the StockFinder 30-day free trial from our links.

Q6.   What markets are covered by BackTesting Report?

A6.   BackTesting Report tests are run on 7,147 tickers on the US Stock Exchanges.      It is primarily meant for the US Stock Market.   Applying the results to US Index Futures and e-Minis is not too much of a stretch.     BackTesting Report does not test strategies on commodities or the forex currency markets.   

Q7. How can I apply BackTesting Report to commodities and forex markets?

A7.  The code is available for some of the best strategies.  You can apply that to your own data to run your own backtest and compare it to the BackTesting Report results for the stock market.

Q8. Does BackTesting Report apply to spread betting?

A8. BackTesting Report applies to spread betting to the extent that you are spread betting on the US Stock market with end-of-day data.

Q9. Do you recommend any particular broker?

A9.  Use whoever you think serves you best as a broker.

Q10. Do you recommend any particular stocks?

A10.  No.  I’m not a resistered investment advisor  and (even if I was I’d still think) its ultimately up to you to decide which stocks to buy and sell and whether investment or trading suits you at all.

Q11. Do you recommend any trading strategies?

A11. No, BackTesting Report compares the performance of various strategies to each other and to a market baseline.   The strategies that come out on top of that comparision are sometimes referred to as the ”best of test”.   I do recommend that you have a plan which includes well-defined strategies which you believe will be successful and you may choose to use some of the “best of test” strategies in that plan.   

BackTesting Report will sometimes recommend against using a particular strategy if its past hypothetical performance was unprofitable because there’s no reason to believe such a losing strategy will suddenly start working.    That is what backtesting is really good at - ruling out losing strategies.   For strategies that do well in backtesting, there’s no assurance that they will be profitable in the future and furthermore success will often depend on the temperment of the person using the strategies.   Since I don’t know you personally (and am not a licensed investment advisor) I can’t really  tell you what to do.

Q12.  How does one use BackTesting Report to make money in the stock market?

A12.  Knowing what has worked and what didn’t work in the past gives people information to form their own working strategy.  I can’t guarantee you will make money in the stock market but I can guarantee that you will learn about the stock market and technical strategies from BackTesting Report.

Q13.  Is BackTesting Report just for mechanical traders?

A13.   BackTesting Report can help discretionary traders and investors as well as mechanical traders.   So far we have yet to come up with a fully mechanical strategy, but that is a reasonable goal.   In any event, discretionary traders use well-defined indicators and strategies too.   Its useful to everyone to know what has worked in the past and what didn’t.    In fact, it may be even more important for a discretionary trader to fully understand the nuances of the track records of the indicators they rely upon for insight into the markets.

Q14. How do I get BackTesting Report?

A14. Visit the Orders page.

Q15. How can I force PayPal to accept credit cards?

A15. Click here to learn how to force paypal to accept credit cards.

Q16. Can you accept any other form of payment besides PayPal?

A16.  Yes, the Order pages on this blog have Google checkout carts as well as PayPal.   

Q17.  Can I order by mail with a check?

Q17.  Yes, you can  mail a check to the address on the order pages.  Be sure to include your email address because that is how you will receive your BackTesting Reports.   Allow extra time for the check to clear.

Q18. My firm has multiple traders who need BackTesting Report.  Any discount for multiple users?

A18.  Yes, please contact me with specifics for a site-wide subscription.   Email jackiep {at} backtestingreport {dot} com  is best or call +1.650.752.4921 between 8am - 8pm Pacific Time.

 Q19.  Can you backtest my own custom strategy or backtest your strategies on my favorite market?

Q19.   Yes, with the understanding that custom services are priced at a premium because no other customers share the cost as they do with BackTesting Report.  If you are  interested, please contact me with specifics, emailing jackiep {at} backtestingreport {dot} com  is best or call +1.650.752.4921 between 8am - 8pm Pacific Time.

Q20.  Do you take requests for strategies to include in BackTesting Report?

A20.   Yes!   The best way to communicate what you want from BackTesting Report is this 60-second multiple-choice survey.  Click here please.

Problem-Solving

P1. Where’s my copy of BackTesting Report?

S1. If you just ordered BackTesting Report from PayPal, go back to that window in your brower and hit the “Return to Merchant” button.   This will take you to a web page where you can download the reports.    You will also receive an email with a link to the download page.    BackTesting is environmentally friendly and is only available electronically - no paper copy is mail to you.

P2.  Where’s my email from BackTesting Report or Jackie Ann Patterson?

S2.  Please add jackiep {at} backtestingreport {dot} com to your address book or whitelist to be sure the email gets to you.     Please check your Spam folder to make sure my email didn’t get in there by mistake.

P3.   Change of address

S3.  No problem.  Just send an email to support {at} backtestingreport {dot} com with your name and email address changes.

P4.   TradeStation gives error message: ”Tried to reference back more bars than allowed by the current MaxBarsBack setting”

S4. To fix this problem, in TradeStation do these steps: