Before you start
Run a backtest first — the heatmap fills in only after a strategy has been simulated.
Steps
- Open your strategy, go to Analysis, and select Monthly Returns.
- Read one year across its row, or one calendar month down its column; the exact figure sits in each cell.
- To change what the figures include, switch Costs & interests, Taxes, or Reinvest profits under Simulation assumptions.
What you should see
A grid of monthly returns laid out by year, shaded from weaker to stronger months, with a Total, DD, and NP/DD summary beside each year's row and the four period KPIs — Avg month, Best month, Worst month, and Positive months — nearby. Flipping a toggle re-labels the same grid with the pre-computed set it selects.
How do you read the month grid?
Each row is a year (Year) and each cell is that year-and-month's return, so you can scan a single year across or one calendar month down the columns. Four KPIs summarise the whole period alongside the grid: Avg month, Best month, Worst month, and Positive months.
What do the Total, DD, and NP/DD columns mean?
Three columns on the right summarise each year.
- Total is the total return for the year.
- DD is that year's maximum drawdown.
- NP/DD is net profit divided by maximum drawdown. It is a plain, public ratio, the same figure the metrics table calls the return-to-drawdown ratio. See return-to-drawdown ratio.
How do the Costs, Taxes, and Reinvest toggles change the numbers?
Three toggles under Simulation assumptions — Costs & interests, Taxes, and Reinvest profits — decide what the figures include. By default Costs & interests is off, Taxes is off, and Reinvest profits is on. Turning one on or off switches the whole page to a version the engine pre-computed when the backtest ran; the page reads the matching set of results rather than recalculating on the spot, so the change is immediate. The current-state view of live holdings ignores these toggles — it always shows reinvested figures with costs and taxes off.
Common problems
The heatmap is empty or shows no months
The grid needs a completed backtest with monthly results. Run the strategy first; a strategy that has never been simulated has no monthly series to plot.