[TP1]Starting a session
Create a replay session, pick your market and dates, and pick up where you left off.
The Backtester (the app calls itself The Proving Ground) replays real futures data one bar at a time. You trade it as it prints, with nothing ahead of the bar you're on.
Creating a session
On the home screen, press Start on the Solo card, or New session in the Backtester menu. The Create a session window opens on the Backtest tab. The Prop challenges tab runs the same window under a firm's rules; see Prop challenges.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Instrument | The chart that opens first. The list covers the E-mini S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Dow, gold and silver, plus their micros. A market only shows once its data is ready. Every session carries every market, so you can switch from the market picker at the top of the chart whenever you're flat with no working order. |
| Name | Optional. Left blank, the session is named after the market and month. |
| Starting balance | $100,000 unless you change it. |
| Window | Day, Week, Month (the default) or Year of tape. |
| Dates | The start and end of the window. Below them you'll see how many trading sessions it holds. |
| Random start | Drops the window on a random day inside the range you can pick. |
How far back the data goes
The note next to the window buttons shows the exact range, from the first month you can pick to the latest day with data. Every market in a session has to cover the whole window, so the start of that range is set by the market with the shortest history.
The home screen
- Your sessions: every session, most recent first, with progress, trades, net P&L and win rate. Click a row to open it. The row menu has Rename, Duplicate, Session analytics and Delete.
- Complete: sessions you've replayed to the end of their window.
- Challenges: your prop challenge sessions.
Saving and coming back
Your place saves as you go and when you leave. Open a session from the list and it picks up from the bar you stopped at, with your trades and drawings. The sessions list itself lives in this browser.
To keep a copy on your account, press Save session in the Stats panel once you have a closed trade. Saved copies show under Saved sessions…: pick one to review its trades, or press Resume to carry on. A saved session that isn't in this browser's list comes back as a standard replay; prop rules aren't rebuilt.
If a saved session shows Archived, it's read-only because another session holds your one writable slot. Select it and press Make active. The one it replaces stays saved and reviewable.
Session notes
The Notes box in the Stats panel is a scratchpad for your read on the tape. It saves as you type, in this browser, and it's one notepad shared by all your sessions, not one per session.
The tour
Show me around on the home screen walks through starting a session, your sessions, prop challenges and Multiplayer (if you have it). It runs on its own the first time you visit.