Have you back tested and optimised on all your available data or just part of it?
As in did you keep back some data that wasn't used in the back test and optimisation to use for forward testing on out of sample data to see if those results are similar to the back test results.
So if you have say four years of data, back test and optimise for the best settings on the first three years then run those settings on the most recent last year of data and see if the results are comparable. Then try the other way round and optimise on the last three years and test on the first year.

Also do a Monte Carlo analysis of the results where your equity curve is rerun with the order of trade results changed so they are mixed up and you can see what would happen, ie, the maximum drawdown if the test starts during a period of unfavourable market conditions.
Both these things will check the robustness of your results and help to avoid over optimisation and provide more confidence for when you do actually start running the system on live data.

I won't say anything else because that pretty much covers my knowledge of back testing as it is something I looked at a while ago, read a few books on and tried out some testing, but then realised I needed to be testing on Daily bars and longer term trading to see any decent test results, and concluded I didn't have the account size for that so didn't pursue it further at that time.

Your stats look good so hopefully somebody can offer you some more experiential advice. Good luck.

Hi @romork

Interesting approach!
You tell us that you use the 5 fold Ichimoku Kinko Hyo in a 12h time frame.

As I am using Ichimoku in all my trading - I have some detailed questions:
Ichimoku is a cool indicator with live, lagging and future lines. Can you tell more about which part(s) of Ichimoku you are using for the tests?
Because that influences a lot the prediction of a price development. Second it makes back testing very very difficult when you are not aware of the different times that indicator uses and shows in a chart.

Second: As a statistic expert expert I am not sure if you can treat the results out of history as Ichi does not show 3 different time lines in the chart...

On my side I am using patterns instead to reveal development in the chosen instrument.
If you are interested just search for my journals - there are 2 with bitcoin as well.
The most recent Ichi I used was the DAX trade of today with a take profit on the Chikou Span. It worked. But if you look back on a chart - you will never find the turning point again - as the Ichi doesnt offer a reading hindsight.

Hope to get some more insight into your using Ichimoku!!
Happy New Year
GFIs1

PS: Backtesting and walking forward is a waste of time anyway. You need a real time approach for every instrument and indicator. Best to open a journal here to discuss it with the best members here on the fio board. LIVE!

Yes, that is exactly what I said.
I'm using all 5 components of Ichimoku (tenkan, kijun, chikou, senkouSpanA, senkouSpanB).
I wrote some code on python for backtest, so I'm not using charts. Code is calculating values of these 5 component for each bar and then applying my rule set. I set up a very tight stop loss (%1) with a maximum 1% risk of capital, that is why my win rate is low like 22%. But I think average risk reward of results is promising.
I will try to test it with live data during next month, then I can share results of that if you interest.
Thanks for your comments.

Thanks for your details. I am just wondering if you are considering the lagging and future data on the components besides the actual one - this doesn't come out from your answer. If so - CHAPEAU!
Good trades!
GFIs1