Analysis Settings

Analysis Settings is one of the most powerful and distinctive features of FX Monitor's backtest engine — a level of analytical flexibility not found on other trading analysis platforms. Rather than being limited to the raw report as exported from MetaTrader, you can reshape how the entire backtest is calculated and viewed, isolating exactly the conditions you want to study.

All filters applied in Analysis Settings affect every metric, chart, and table on the dashboard simultaneously. Click Apply & Save to apply, or Reset to return to defaults.

Basic

Initial Balance

Override the deposit value used as the base for all percentage calculations and lot normalisation. By default the platform uses the deposit recorded in the backtest report. Setting a custom value is useful when you want to simulate what the results would look like with a different starting capital — for example, analysing a $1,500 backtest as if it were run on a $5,000 account.

Default Lot (Fixed Lot Mode)

When set, all trades in the backtest are recalculated as if they were opened at this fixed lot size, regardless of the actual lot recorded in the report. For example, setting 0.01 will normalise a 0.05-lot trade to one fifth of its original P&L. This allows fair comparison between backtests that used different position sizes, and eliminates the distortion caused by variable lot sizing.

Leave blank to use actual lot sizes from the report.

Lot Normalisation (Balance-Based)

When enabled, lot sizes are recalculated proportionally to the initial balance throughout the entire test period. This removes the effect of compounding — trades opened after significant balance growth will no longer be weighted more heavily than early trades. The result is a decompounded equity curve that shows performance as if the strategy always traded relative to the starting balance, making it easier to assess the strategy's edge independently of capital growth.

Date / Time

This tab allows you to isolate specific time conditions and study how the strategy behaves within them — answering questions that a static backtest report cannot.

Date Range

Filter trades by open date. Set a Date From and Date To to restrict analysis to a specific period within the full backtest history.

Days of Week

Select which weekdays to include in the analysis. Only trades opened on the selected days will be counted. Toggle individual days or use All / None for quick selection.

Example: selecting only Wednesday shows how the strategy would have performed if it traded exclusively on Wednesdays.

Time Ranges (Hours)

Define one or more hour ranges to filter trades by open time. Multiple ranges can be added and are combined with OR logic — a trade is included if it falls within any of the defined ranges.

Example: setting a range of 22–01 isolates rollover hour activity, showing how the strategy performs specifically during that session.

This combination of day and hour filters makes it possible to perform session analysis, detect time-based biases, or simulate restricted trading schedules — none of which is possible in a standard MetaTrader report.

Symbols

For multi-currency backtests, toggle which symbols to include in the analysis. Unselected symbols are excluded from all metrics, charts, and the trade list. Use All / None for quick switching.

This allows you to isolate the performance of individual instruments within a multi-symbol strategy — for example, analysing only XAUUSD trades from a backtest that covered ten symbols, or excluding a single underperforming instrument to see how the overall result changes.

Comments

In MetaTrader backtests, trade comments serve as the equivalent of Magic Numbers in live trading — they are used by multi-strategy EAs to tag each trade with an identifier indicating which sub-strategy placed it.

The Comments filter lets you select which strategy comments to include in the analysis. Deselecting a comment excludes all trades tagged with it from every calculation. This allows you to analyse individual sub-strategies within a combined backtest report in complete isolation — equivalent to running a separate backtest for each strategy, but without needing to do so.