Historical Data

Historical price (and sometimes volume) data is the beginning of your backtesting.

You need to get accurate data for the time period that you want to test.

Historical Data from Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance is one of the best sources of free historical data. It is a vast deposit of price data from 1000s of markets across the world.

Entering Historical Data – Automatic Method

The latest Tradinformed Backtest Models use VBA to speed up the process of importing data into your model. If you haven’t checked your macro security settings yet, see this page: Macro Security.

Step 1: Make sure the historical data is in the correct format

The historical data column order must be:
Date – (Time) – Open – High – Low – Close – (Volume)

Step 2: Click the button: Clear Historical Data

This empies the historical data cells and deletes all the unused formulas.

Step 3: Enter Yes/No for Intraday and Volume Data

This will create columns for Time (intraday) and Volume.

Step 4: Insert Historical Data starting Cell A4

The simplest way to enter data is to use Copy – Paste. I demonstrate this method in the video. Be careful not to use Cut – Paste this is not the same thing and will reset the formulas in your model.

Step 5: Click the button: Start Backtest

This button copies the formulas down and open the Results tab.

Entering Historical Data – Manual Method

You can also enter historical data manually without using VBA.

Step 1: Manually delete all the existing price data

Remove all the existing data by highlighting it and then clearing it using the delete key.

Step 2: Insert columns for Time and Volume if you are using them

Right-click and select Insert to create the new columns. Remember that the column order must be as shown above: Column Order

Step 3: Insert Historical Data starting Cell A4

The simplest way to enter data is to use Copy – Paste. I demonstrate this method in the video. Be careful not to use Cut – Paste this is not the same thing and will reset the formulas in your model.

Step 4: Adjust the formula length

You now need to make sure that the backtest formulas cover the same rows as the historical data. If you need more formulas, highlight the bottom row and double click at the bottom right-hand corner to copy them down.

If you have too many formulas, firstly clear the row immediately below the historical data. Then delete the extra rows of formulas.

Next Step

Learn how to: Add Technical Indicators to your model!