Read a strategy's position history

Before you start

• The strategy needs a completed backtest.
• One convention to hold throughout: Gross is before costs, Net is after, and Costs is the difference, shown as a positive amount. See gross vs net.

Position History depends on your plan. If its tab shows a small square of bars beside its name, see what a tab outside your plan shows.

Included from Starter upwards. See what each plan includes.

Steps

1. Open the strategy, choose Analysis, then the Position History tab.
2. Read the four figures across the top: Symbols traded, Profitable symbols, Best symbol, and Trading costs.
3. Read the By symbol table: one row for every instrument the backtest ever held, with its Gross, Costs, Net, Dividends and Total P&L over the whole run. To find one instrument, type its ticker or name in Search symbols…; to rank the table differently, select a column heading. More rows load as you scroll.
4. Select a symbol's row to open it. It lists the positions taken in that symbol under Positions with a count, each with its Start, End, Side and Max contracts and the same money columns.
5. Select a position to open it. Its Trade history lists every fill, and Dividends & splits lists the events recorded while it was held.

What you should see

Three nested tables describing the same trades at three scales: the whole life of a symbol, one position in it, and one fill. The profit-and-loss columns — Gross, Costs, Net, Dividends and Total P&L — are in the currency the analysis is shown in at every level, so rows can be compared directly: your base currency on a strategy you own, and US dollars on a Public strategy, which is shown with default settings. Prices are not converted: a trade's Actual execution price, and the value and price of a dividend or split, are in the instrument's own currency. Each column is explained on the page that owns it:

• the By symbol table and the four figures above it — positions summary table;
• the positions and trades inside a symbol — positions detail drill-down;
• the last column, a symbol's whole result with dividends — Total P&L;
• why a closing trade happened, in its Reason column — exit reason;
• a position still open at the end of the run — realized vs open P&L.

Common problems

Net is the same as Gross on every row

The backtest charged no trading costs, which is the default. Costs & interests is off whenever the tab opens, so every Costs cell is zero, Net equals Gross, and the page says so: "These figures are gross of trading costs and taxes.", because Taxes is off by default too. Switch it on under Simulation settings to see costs deducted. See the costs switch.

Gross minus Costs is one unit away from Net

Each cell is rounded on its own, so the three displayed figures can differ by one in the last digit. Nothing is missing; see gross vs net.

The table lists a company that no longer trades

That is by design. A company that was delisted, acquired or taken private stays in the market data with the history it had, and a backtest can hold it for the period it actually traded — dropping it would leave only the survivors and flatter the result. See delisted, and what the data coverage figures count for how such instruments are counted.

The table reads "No symbols in this backtest."

The run opened no positions at all, so there is nothing to list. Inside a symbol or a position the same situation reads "No positions for this symbol.", "No trades." or "No dividends or splits."

Rows stop loading with "Couldn't load results."

The next page of rows could not be fetched. Reload the tab to try again.