TWM Wiki
Validator – Test Individual and Portfolio Trading Strategies in TWM
Creating an Instrument List
The Validator allows for backtesting of strategies, either individually or grouped within custom portfolios. To access the Validator, navigate to:
Admin Panel → New → Validator
Multiple Validator windows can be opened and run at the same time.
When the Validator is first opened, the workspace appears blank. The left pane is designated for building lists of instruments used in test runs, while the right pane holds configuration options for each strategy. The center pane displays performance results. The side arrows can be used to reveal or collapse the left and right panes.
To create a new instrument list, a right-click in the left pane brings up the context menu. From there, selecting “Add List” allows the user to name the new list.
Adding Instruments
Once you have created a named list, add one or more instruments to it:
- Right-click on the new list’s name in the left pane.
- Choose Add Instrument from the context menu.
A Data Series dialog appears; select the desired instrument and timeframe. (For details on the Data Series window, see the Market Data section)
You can add any instruments at any time, in any order.
• You may create multiple lists.
• If you are connected to a data provider, TWM will download history immediately after adding an instrument. Otherwise, it will use previously downloaded data.
• To edit an instrument already in the list, right-click it and choose Edit from the same context menu
Running Strategies
You can enable a strategy on the whole list or on an instrument. You can execute the list with one strategy or with many different strategies at the same time. You can also execute a single strategy on a single list. First select the instrument or the list that you want to execute the strategy on. Then click on the three dots on the right hand side and choose the strategy. Configure the strategy and click the run button.
If the list was selected at the point when you click run the execution will take place on the whole list and you will see the whole list icons change from red cross to green check. If left hand side selection was placed on an individual symbol then execution will only take place on that symbol and you will only see that particular cross icon change state.
If you change any strategy parameters after you have executed it, you will see the icon on the left change from check to cross signalling the user that the performance that he is looking at right now does not match the strategy configuration any more.
- To run a strategy on a list enable the strategy on the root of the list (list name) and check the box next to list name.
- To run a straetgy on an individual instrument select the instrument in the list and enable the strategy for that particular instrument.
- Clickicking run whilst root is selected will execute the whole list.
- Clicking run whilst particular symbol is selected will only execute the strategy for that particular symbol.
- Enabling a strategy on the root and checking the box next to the root name will execute only that particular strategy on the whole list.
- If the checkbox is disabled the list will execute all strategies that are enabled for each particular instrument.
Performance
The center pane of the Validator provides the following performance evaluation features:
Analysis (Equity and Drawdown)
- Displays equity curves and drawdown metrics for a single strategy run.
- When viewing overall portfolio performance (root mode, with the instrument list selected), two additional sections appear to show multiple equity and drawdown curves side by side.
- Use the Compare option in the dropdown menu to switch between single-strategy and multi-strategy views.
Chart
- Shows a full, interactive chart of asset prices over time, overlaid with strategy performance data.
Orders
- Lists all orders generated by the strategy during execution.
Trades
- Displays information on every trade executed by the strategy, including entry and exit details.
Summary
- Provides an overall performance summary, such as total profit/loss, win rate, and other key metrics.
Note: You can click through individual strategy performance by selecting a symbol, or view combined instrument list performance by clicking on the list’s root.
Instrument Templates
You can save any created instrument lists as templates to speed up future workflows. Templates can be exported for use on another machine or kept as backups. If you enable the Sync checkbox, each time you load a template its dates will update relative to the current date.
For example, suppose you saved a template one month ago with a data‐series range of “150 days back.” You have two options when loading it today:
Without Sync: Load the template and keep the original dates. In this case, the start date will be 150 days before one month ago, and the end date will be one month ago.
- With Sync Enabled: Load the template and shift its dates forward so that “150 days back” now refers to today. The instruments will load from today minus 150 days through today.
