Home                           

 Try Investor/RT             

 Investor/RT Tour           

 Getting Started              

 What's New                  

 Testimonials                 

  Q&A - Broken down by Topic . . .      Complete List of Questions - All Topics
     Charts and Technical Indicators      TPO Charts
     RTL: Scans, Signals, and Custom Indicators      Importing and Exporting
     Trading Systems and Backtesting      Schedules
     Quotepages, Portfolios and Custom Columns      Alarms / Alerts
     Data: Historical Data, the Database, and Data Services      User Variables (T# and V#)
     Custom Instruments: Spreads and Pairs      General / Miscellaneous
     Controls, Windows, and the Button Indicator      Autotrading
     Slide Shows      Product Line

 
Q&A Home

Investor/RT Answer
Answers to Common Questions

   

Question

How do I change the default Account Balance Chart that comes up as part of the output of  a backtest?
   

Answer

When performing a backtest of a trading system named X, if the "Account Balance Chart" checkbox is checked in the backtest setup, a chart of the trading system ticker $X is produced. Users who wish to customize the account balance chart in various ways can do so by revising the chart then right-clicking in the chart and issuing the Save As Default Chart command, thereby saving the customized version of the chart as the default for the the ticker $X. In the list of chart names, this chart will appear near the top, having a name of the form <$X Chart> where $X is the ticker symbol of the trading system, X being the name of the trading system. Whenever the trading system named X is backtested, this default chart for $X will be shown at the conclusion of the backtest.

If the user has many different trading systems and wishes to customize the chart produced individually for each one, this technique enables such flexibility. However, if you want to have a single chart template that is used for all trading system account balance charts, there is now a method for accomplishing this without having to duplicate the same chart template over and over for each trading system. When producing a backtest account balance chart, Investor/RT now looks first to see if the particular trading system has a default chart and if so it uses it. For example if backtesting a trading system named MySystem, Investor/RT will first look for a chart named "<$MySystem Chart>" and open that chart if it is defined. If the default chart for the specific trading system is not found, Investor/RT will look to see if there is a "global default" for all trading systems, looking up the chart name "<Backtest Chart>". If this chart template is found, it will be used. The particular trading system ticker will be inserted into this chart. If neither the system-specific nor default backtesting chart is found, Investor/RT will create a simple chart of the trading system ticker.  If a chart is saved with the specific name "<Backtest Chart>", then this chart will be used as the default Account Balance Chart for all trading systems that don't specifically have their own unique default chart.