From backtest to live trading
A backtest evaluates one set of rules against history. To trade several strategies together and run them forward on live data, you move up two levels: a Portfolio combines backtests under one pool of capital, and an Account runs a Portfolio forward on paper or through a real broker. The full path is Strategy, then Backtest, then Portfolio, then Account.
Beyond a single backtest
A backtest answers one question: how would this set of rules have performed against historical data. That is enough to evaluate a strategy in isolation. It is not how anyone trades.
Real trading runs several strategies at once, under one account, forward on live data. Two entities carry that jump.
A Portfolio combines backtests. You list the backtests you want to run together and give each one a percentage allocation of a single capital pool. The Portfolio re-runs them together and reports the combined performance, so you see how the strategies interact rather than reading each backtest on its own.
An Account takes a Portfolio and runs it forward on live data, either with simulated orders (paper) or with real orders through a broker (live). This is where a set of rules stops being a historical study and starts placing trades.
The rest of this section documents both in full. This page frames why they exist and how they fit together.
The hierarchy
Four things stack, in order: Strategy, Backtest, Portfolio, Account.
A Strategy is the rule set: the entry, the exit, the position design, and the position sizing. It never appears in the interface as an object. The other three are concrete entities you create and open directly.
A Backtest applies a Strategy to historical data. Its fields (entry, exit, position design, position sizing, initial capital, symbol, date range) are what define the Strategy in practice.
A Portfolio combines backtests, each with a percentage allocation of one capital pool.
An Account wraps a Portfolio and runs it forward on live data. An Account holds at most one Portfolio at a time, and an empty Account with no Portfolio is a valid state.
Strategy is a mental model
There is no "Strategy" object to create, open, save, or clone. The word names the conceptual rule set (entry, exit, position design, position sizing) that a Backtest's fields express. When you change those fields, you change the Strategy. Everything you actually create and interact with lives at the Backtest level and above.
Library entities vs. projects
Signals, models, backtests, and Portfolios are library entities. They live in your library, which is global to your account and independent of any project. There is one copy of each, wherever you open it from.
A Project is a working surface. It opens these entities in tabs so you can view and edit them together. A Project does not own or contain the entities it opens. Opening a backtest in a Project is a way of working with it, not a move, and the same backtest can be opened from any Project.
This distinction is load-bearing downstream. Whether snapshots, clones, and the References panel operate on the one library entity or on a copy is the whole question those pages answer, and it only makes sense once you know the entity is global and the Project is a view onto it.
Where each piece is documented
- Portfolios: allocations, capital, and how the combined performance report is built.
- Accounts and the entity hierarchy: what an Account is and how it sits over a Portfolio.
- Account states and lifecycle: the states an Account moves through, from empty to running.
- Attaching a Portfolio: promotion and swaps: putting a Portfolio on an Account and replacing it.
- Snapshots and inspecting an account: freezing and reading the state of a running Account.
- The References panel: seeing where a library entity is used across Projects and Accounts.
- The account ledger: the running record of an Account's activity.
- Paper vs live trading and brokers: simulated and real execution, and broker links.