Saved EURUSD test
Free backtesting software: why $10,756.64 can still breach your daily limit
Your free backtest can show a $10,756.64 closed balance while equity, including an open trade, has fallen to $10,019.82. In my saved EURUSD test, the daily floor was $10,256.64. The balance looked safe. The account value used by the daily rule had already crossed its limit. Before choosing software for your challenge, check whether its report shows both values while a position remains open.
Start with the question you need answered
A trader asked for a free way to replay historical gold candles, test entries and exits, and record win rate and reward against risk. Those are useful first checks. They leave another question open: what happened to the account between entry and exit?
If you only write down the closed result, a trade that eventually wins can hide an earlier open loss. For a challenge with an equity-based daily rule, that earlier moment matters. A replay tool needs to help you inspect it, rather than only produce a final percentage.
What the saved test showed
I ran the EURUSD rules through the native MT5 tester from May to October 2025. On 19 May, the recorded closed balance was $10,756.64. The saved day's minimum was $10,256.64, using a $500 daily allowance. One position was open. Its current account equity was $10,019.82.
Those figures include the commissions and swaps already recorded by the tester. I did not subtract them again. The chart below comes from the saved account rows. It keeps balance, equity and the daily floor on the same money scale, so you can see the difference without translating a win rate into an account rule.
The useful lesson is small: a closed balance above the floor does not tell you whether an open position stayed above it. Keep the lowest account value during the trade beside its eventual closed result. That is the number you need before comparing the run with your own daily loss rule.
A free starting point for an automated rule
MetaTrader 5 is available as a free download. Its built-in Strategy Tester runs an automated trading rule against historical quotes and offers visual playback. It is a practical starting point when you have an editable rule that the terminal can execute.
That does not turn it into a complete discretionary replay journal. If you decide entries by eye, you still need to record those decisions before seeing the next candle. Keep the entry, stop, target, position size and skipped trades with the date. Otherwise a clean-looking report can describe decisions you changed after seeing the outcome.
For TradingView, check the current Bar Replay help for your chosen interval and available history. The useful comparison is the period and detail you can actually inspect, not the word “free” on a software list.
Three things to keep with your report
First, keep both account lines. Does the report show current equity while a trade is open, or only closed balance? Save the timestamp at the deepest open loss.
Second, keep the costs and their treatment. Write which spread, commission and swap values the run used. Check whether they are already inside the account figures before applying an extra deduction.
Third, keep the daily rule and its clock. The saved test used an empirically aligned server clock for this period. For your own account, confirm the firm's reset time and how it sets the next day's floor. A broker's new candle alone does not answer that question.
This was a historical simulation using ticks generated from one-minute candles, with a continued example after its first daily breach on 6 May and an empirically aligned clock; it does not reconstruct a valid continuing challenge account or predict your future result.
For your own rules, use the free Challenge Pre-Check. Start with the platform, account size, daily loss rule and one saved report. That gives the software comparison a concrete question to answer.
Sources and related guides
Start with your own rules
Bring your platform, account size, daily loss rule and one saved report. Start with the question your report needs to answer.
Free Challenge Pre-Check →