General questions

How to contact support?

Sign up and click "Ask a question" on Discussions page. To submit private files or with a sales question don't hesitate to send an email to support at wealth-lab dot com.

What does Wealth-Lab 7|8 have over Version 6.9?

Version 7 - and now Version 8 - are modern platforms built for Windows 10 in continuous development for enhancements and extensions. Here are some of the hard-hitting new features:

  • Connections for multiple brokerages for automated trading, streaming, and historical data - including cryptocurrency trading!
  • Fast optimizations using multiple CPU cores
  • Overhauled backtesting engine which processes bar-by-bar so you can interact with the equity curve and other simulation aspects dynamically
  • Extremely versatile and configurable Strategy Building Blocks - programming not required!
  • Unique new tools like the Price Grid, Candlestick Genetic Evolver, Chart Patterns Genetic Evolver and Indicator Profiler

How do I get my license?

After you register on wealth-lab.com and pay for a subscription plan, start WL7|8 and click "Download License" from the Help menu.

If I purchase Wealth-Lab can I use it on my laptop as well as my desktop?

Absolutely.

If I upgrade my computers, how to move the license over?

Upgrading to a new device is transparent so you don't have to take any extra steps. In case you're having some difficulty getting WL7|8 to launch on your new computer after using more than two devices, simply reach us at support@wealth-lab.com and we'll sort it out.

Is it possible to do multi-currency backtests with Wealth-Lab?

Not yet, but this is on our short list for implementation.

Basic usage

Why are all my backtest trades negative?

Your position size is very small for the commission plan you've chosen in Wealth-Lab's Backtest Preferences.

Every time I run a Strategy I get a different result. Why?

This happens because your simulation results in too many trades for the simulated equity. You can see how many "missed" trades you had by examining the Metrics Report, NSF Positions. Each time you run the backtest, WL7 randomly takes some of the possible candidate trades, resulting in different outcomes.

Solutions:

  1. Reduce the position size.
  2. Assign Transaction.Weight to trades. See the Transaction Weight Property in the QuickRef.

I want to test a strategy that buys and sells with stop/limit orders on the same bar.

You can't realistically backtest with stop and limit orders on the same bar as the intra-bar price dynamics is unknown. What is reliably known is that the open occurred before all the other prices and that the close occurred last.

But if you have the intraday data, assign a Transaction.Weight and activate "Use Granular Limit/Stop Processing" in Advanced Strategy Settings to make Wealth-Lab evaluate the intra-bar price dynamics.

What are NSF positions?

NSF (Not Sufficient Funds) Positions are transactions that failed to become a position in the backtext due to insufficient simulated cash/buying power to take the trade. You can choose to retain or drop the NSF positions on a per strategy basis, on the Strategy settings tab (with live trading consequences). See Wealth-Lab Help > Backtest Preferences for details. Watch this video on YouTube for a live explanation!

My backtest has many trades not included due to not sufficient funds (NSF), what to do?

This happens when, 1) 100% equity sizing is used, and more generally when, 2) a strategy has too many trade candidates for the available buying power. Market order strategies can virtually eliminate NSF Positions by switching the Position Sizing Settings > Basis Price to "Market Open next Bar".

Why a position's Profit does not match my calculations?

Slippage and commissions aside, it's due to the rounding of entry/exit price to 2 decimals on the Positions tab while processing them with full precision internally. Another reason is defining the Market/Symbol to use fractional shares.

How can my strategy from Blocks enter or exit at close?

Yes, assuming you have the PowerPack extension installed. Note that it makes no sense to do so in an intraday strategy).

Can Rotation strategies be tweaked like add a filter or use a custom indicator?

Yes, to some extent:

Optimization

Is it possible to optimize the position size?

Yes, either directly in Position Sizing settings or by assigning a custom Quantity to the Transaction.

Why my backtest and optimization results don't match? Why exhaustive optimization may return unexpected results?

Inconsistency may be caused by the Exhaustive optimization running in parallel to speed things up. Use the Exhaustive (Non-Parallel) Optimizer and your results should match. Also, be careful when optimizing strategies with static variables using a parallel optimizer and either adopt in your code a design pattern outlined here or use a non-parallel optimizer.

In some cases it's possible that Strategy's StartIndex starts before the longest period indicator. See the Best Answer post here for explanation and workarounds

Data

What happens if my data source has some trouble?

WL7|8 supports fallback when downloading data, and it will try to get it from the next preferred data provider.

Why a WealthData DataSet like Nasdaq 100 has almost 300 symbols and not 100 ?

WealthData DataSets eliminate survivorship bias, including the companies that were in the index at some point in time but later were removed. Backtesting on WealthData indices gets you a true to life result because it correctly applies the stocks that were in and out of the index at the point in times of your simulated entries.

How to fix a bad bar in the data of a symbol on chart?

If your data vendor had a bug in their data so it looks corrupt, try refreshing it using an applicable way - then update the DataSet / provider:

  1. If one symbol is affected, right click on the chart, choose "Reload chart data from provider"
  2. If some symbols have zero OHLC values or Open/Close outside of bar range, this can be fixed by choosing "Perform Data Cleanup" on the Data Integrity tab.
  3. If a DataSet is corrupt, go to Data Manager > DataSets > Data Truncation. Having deleted the bad bar(s), update the DataSet.
  4. If a provider is affected, go to Data Manager > Historical Providers > right click, "Delete local files", and then update all data for this provider.

What does "Historical data pre-emptively ended" stand for in backtest?

It may occur when the backtest had a position in a delisted symbol (usually Wealth-Data) and WL7|8 liquidated it to free up cash. Another possibility is when using Unlinked DataSets and one of enabled historical data providers is late to update the EOD data.

Trading

What should I choose for live auto-trading, Quotes window or Strategy Monitor?

Quotes window is best for triggering orders from EOD Stop/Limit strategies while Strategy Monitor is optimized for intraday trading DataSets of symbols.

How can I persist Strategy Monitor?

The set of strategies running in the Strategy Monitor can be saved in a Workspace.

Which brokers does Wealth-Lab support?

The following brokers are currently supported for live trading and as data sources, with support for more brokers to come later:

Programming

How do I start programming Wealth-Lab strategies in C# ?

The language Wealth-Lab speaks is C#. To create Wealth-Lab strategies from scratch, you need to have the basic knowledge of such language concepts as: language syntax, data types, operators and statements, loops, classes, Date/Time and String classes. Here are some ideas for an online C# class or book that will help you learn programming and become familiar with the key language concepts:

Migrating from Wealth-Lab 6

I'm a WL6 user, will I get WL7|8 for free?

Legacy customers with active license(s) have a time-limited subscription to WL7 without charge on special conditions. See here.

Can WL7|8 and WL6 co-exist on the same machine?

Yes. Even versions 7 and 8 are independent and don't share directories or any files.

Will Wealth-Lab 7|8 recognize my strategies from WL6?

No, but they're pretty easy to convert, and we'll be happy to assist if needed. To help get started, download and install the Version 6.9 QuickRef with Version 7 Equivalents from the Wealth-Lab Wiki.

Where did "Use worst trades in portfolio simulation" go?

Wealth-Lab's backtest engine evaluates each symbol for entries (and exits) in parallel on a bar-by-bar basis. Consequently, it's not possible to determine which of the candidate positions would have been the worst at the time of entry.

Where is the "Raw Profit" mode?

You may have used Raw Profit mode, now expelled from Wealth-Lab 7|8, to see all trades taken as if the capital was (almost) infinite. To accomplish the same effect, set a large starting capital, Basis Price to "Market open next bar" and a margin factor greater than 1.0.

I'm building a strategy from Blocks and missing OR Divider

It's not gone, just different. Option 1: Drop another Entry/Exit block with another condition to be OR'd. Option 2: Use a Multi-Condition Group and set At least N Condition(s) True to '1'. For more info, see Building Blocks > Building Block Rules in the Help Guide.

I'm a former Fidelity Wealth-Lab Pro 6 user. Where is Fidelity data and how can I connect to my Fidelity accounts in Wealth-Lab 7|8 ?

Connecting to Fidelity accounts is not possible and there are no current plans to integrate the Fidelity brokerage.