The Lab is a tab on each of your strategies. It is where you test your own ideas about that strategy before you trade them.
You describe the idea. Wildflower makes a copy of your strategy with that one change, runs both over the same past prices, and shows the facts side by side: how many trades, how many won, what they made and lost, the worst stretch, and the trades each one passed over and why.
The four things in it
- Try an idea. Make a copy of your strategy with something changed, and name it. Free, with or without a plan.
- Side by side. Run two of your versions over the same dates and read the figures in two columns.
- Keep comparing. Have the same pair run again every week over a rolling stretch of dates, and read the log as it grows.
- Live rehearsal. Run an idea on live prices on one of your connected accounts, with no orders placed.
Side by side and Keep comparing run backtests on our servers, so they need the Backtest or Bot plan.
Which version to use is up to you
The Lab shows the numbers side by side. Which version to use is up to you.
Nothing on a results screen puts a version on an account. That is its own step, on the account page.
Where its numbers come from
Every figure in the Lab has one of three labels:
- Backtest: measured on past prices.
- Rehearsal: measured on live prices, with no orders placed.
- Live: real orders and real fills from your broker.
Figures with different labels are never added together, and never share a column or a chart line.
What can go wrong
Comparing two versions over one stretch of dates and picking the one that came out ahead is a well-known way to fit a strategy to the past. The Lab shows you what happened in those dates and nothing more. You can test any version again on dates you did not use to pick it.