---
title: "Backtesting - Meaning & GFN's Figure - Get Funded Now"
description: "Running a strategy over historical data to estimate how it would have performed. Useful for rejecting ideas, weak as evidence for accepting them, because…"
url: "https://getfundednow.com/glossary/backtesting"
language: "en"
last_modified: "2026-09-22"
publisher: "Get Funded Now (getfundednow.com)"
translations:
  es: "https://getfundednow.com/es/glossary/backtesting"
  pt-BR: "https://getfundednow.com/pt-br/glossary/backtesting"
  fr: "https://getfundednow.com/fr/glossary/backtesting"
  it: "https://getfundednow.com/it/glossary/backtesting"
  de: "https://getfundednow.com/de/glossary/backtesting"
disclosure: "All trading at Get Funded Now is simulated. 'Funded' means a simulated or virtual account; GFN is not a broker and does not hold client funds."
---

Strategy and performance

# Backtesting

Running a strategy over historical data to estimate how it would have performed. Useful for rejecting ideas, weak as evidence for accepting them, because the result is fitted to data already seen.

GFN’s figure

A backtest priced for a GFN account has to include $3.50 per side, $7 per lot round turn and a realistic spread, and its worst peak-to-trough has to fit inside 8% on the 2 Step or 5% on Instant.

In detail

## Backtesting, explained

The figure worth extracting from a backtest is not the return but the worst peak-to-trough drawdown, because that is what determines whether the strategy fits inside an account's floor.

Include costs. A backtest without spread, commission and slippage overstates a frequent-trading strategy by a margin large enough to reverse the conclusion.

[Rules handbook](https://getfundednow.com/rules) · [More strategy and performance](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/category/strategy)

Related

## Terms that come with it

Most rules only make sense next to the ones they interact with. These are the entries this one depends on.

- [Forward testing](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/forward-testing) - Running a strategy on live data it has never seen, in real time. It is the honest test a backtest cannot be, because the results are produced by data that could not have been fitted.
- [Peak-to-trough](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/peak-to-trough) - The decline from an equity curve's highest point to its lowest subsequent point before a new high is made. It is the standard way of stating how deep a strategy's worst historical losing run was.
- [Expectancy](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/expectancy) - The average result of a trade over a large sample, combining win rate and average win and loss. A positive expectancy is necessary for a strategy to work and not sufficient for it to pass an evaluation.
- [Profit factor](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/profit-factor) - Gross profit divided by gross loss across a sample of trades. A profit factor above 1 means the strategy made money; below 1 means it lost, whatever the win rate suggests.
- [Commission](https://getfundednow.com/glossary/commission) - An explicit per-lot charge for executing a trade, usually quoted per side. Two sides make a round turn, so the quoted figure has to be doubled to get the cost of a completed trade.

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Source: https://getfundednow.com/glossary/backtesting
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