Backtest a setup and compare it with your live trades

Vink doesn't replay charts itself. You replay where you already do, like TradingView's bar replay, and log each practice trade in Backtests. Vink keeps those trades apart from your live ones and shows how the two compare. The Backtests page is where everything about your backtests is: your setups with every session added up, and the sessions themselves.

Start a session

A session is one or more setups tested on one stretch of history.

1. Open Backtests in the menu, under Analyze.
2. Press Start a session (or New session once you have one).
3. Give it a name and tick the Setups it tests. Each is compared with your live trades tagged with it.
4. Tick the Symbols you replay. The list holds the symbols you've traded. Type another one and press Add if it isn't there.
5. Enter the period you replay, if you like.
6. Pick a Target: 30 trades for a first read, or 100 for a clearer one.
7. Press Start session.

Log your practice trades

On the session's page you can log a trade two ways.

• A quick row: the replayed day, the symbol, the setup when the session tests more than one, long or short, and the result in R. To keep the chart with it, paste it (Ctrl/Cmd+V), drop it, or click Chart (optional): paste, drop or pick. Press Add row or Enter.
• A full trade: press Log a full trade instead. The normal trade form opens for this session. When the session tests more than one setup, pick which one the trade was. Enter the figures from your replay and the entry time from the replayed chart, so the trade is dated on the day you replayed.

Vink keeps a backtest chart but doesn't read it, so a backtest never uses your chart readings. The progress bar fills in blocks of 25, up to your target.

Read the session's numbers

This session's numbers shows the trades, how many won, what a trade makes on average, the total, the profit factor, the average win and loss, the longest losing run and the deepest drawdown, with the curve of the session in R.

Each setup against your live trades puts each setup's backtest trades beside your live trades on it. Vink compares from 30 backtest trades on a setup. Below that it says it's too early. Above it, Vink says how much more or less a live trade makes than a backtested one, and whether the two ranges overlap. When they overlap, the gap isn't proven yet.

By symbol and By direction split the session's trades by what you traded and which way.

On the Backtests page, Your setups, every session added up shows the same comparison for each setup across all your sessions.

Compare with your real trades

On the session's page, Compare with your real trades says how many real trades match the session and on how many days both sides have trades. Press See them side by side. Vink lines up the session's trades with the trades you really took, one row per day: the backtest on the left, your real trades on the right.

The real trades are the ones that match the session: in its replayed period, on its symbols, and tagged with one of its setups. When the session names no symbols or no setups, Vink doesn't filter on them. Missed trades are left out. If you haven't entered a period, Vink uses the first and last day you logged in the session.

• A backtest trade shows the symbol, long or short, the result in R, its setup, and its chart when you kept one.
• A real trade shows the same, plus the entry, stop and exit, the P&L, the account, the start of its note and a link to the trade. When you hide amounts, the P&L stays hidden here too.
• Click a chart to see it full size.

At the top, Backtest and real, added up puts the two side by side: the trades, the days, how many won, what a trade makes on average, the total, the profit factor, the average win and loss, the longest losing run and the deepest drawdown. The Difference column is real minus backtest. Vink says in one sentence how much more or less a real trade makes than a backtested one, from 30 backtest trades, and the curve shows both sides in R.

Under Day by day, pick which days to see: All days, Both sides, Backtest only or Real only. Each shows how many days it holds.

What stays apart

Backtest trades never count in Stats, the dashboard, the Vink score, your review, prop-firm limits or the daily loss limit. A session isn't one of your accounts, so it doesn't count toward your plan's accounts either. A trade logged in a session stays in that session when you edit it, and its page says which session it belongs to.

To remove a session, open it, press Edit session, then Delete session. Its trades and charts go with it. Your live trades stay as they are.