Backtesting Club Offers You Everything You Need to Become a Consistently Profitable Trader
Start using the same tools and techniques that are behind the success of the 3% minority of traders.
This Is the Equity Curve Every Trader Dreams Of
…And This Is the Typical Equity Curve of 76% of Retail Traders
If You're Wondering Why Most Retail Traders Fail, Here Are the 3 Main Reasons:
1. Poor trading fundamentals
Trading is a business like any other. If you want to succeed in it, you need to gain a competitive edge through superior knowledge.
Many novice and unsuccessful traders fail to understand that financial markets are the most competitive environment in the world. When you decide to enter this arena, you’re competing against opponents with better education, knowledge, information, equipment, and likely a higher IQ. These guys and girls on the other side of the ring also have access to the best mentors and coaches in the field, as well as a virtually unlimited supply of capital. These are the people you’re trading against.
However, despite these facts, for some strange reason, people think that all they need to do is hop on YouTube, type “Trading Basics” or something similar into the search bar, and learn everything they need to know from a few short videos. Unfortunately for them, they very often come across only young influencers whose videos focus more on form than substance. It is therefore no surprise that their chances of gaining the knowledge that every professional trader possesses are truly slim.
The average retail trader will never learn how to reduce drawdowns, calculate the correct position size, set optimal stop-losses and profit targets, or optimize their strategy. They won’t find out that a high win rate isn’t actually important, and that strategies with a high risk-reward ratio don’t generally generate higher profits than those with a low risk-reward ratio. No one will explain to them that a trader’s goal is not to create a collection of home run trades, but to build a steadily growing equity curve. This and a thousand other important things will never reach them, since these trading fundamentals can only be learned from experienced traders, who usually do not seek attention on social media or YouTube.
2. Not taking advantage of professional backtesting software
Unlike traditional businesses, trading has one huge advantage: thanks to backtesting, we can determine how our strategy is likely to perform in the future without risking a single dollar in the market. In addition to providing us with a wide range of metrics and data, it also helps us build discipline and confidence in our trading approach.
Even though the benefits of backtesting are undeniable and well known within the trading community, only a very small percentage of retail traders actually use it. Most novice and unsuccessful traders mistakenly believe they can bypass this process by finding someone with an already proven strategy and simply implementing it in their live trading without much effort. Unfortunately for them, the market is a very unforgiving place where only hard-working individuals who have properly done their homework succeed. As a rule, after just a few trades, they quickly realize that there are no shortcuts in trading and that this is not the way to go.
Backtesting is a skill that professional traders use throughout their careers. However, to reap all its benefits, you need to use the right tools and software.
The small fraction of retail traders who decide to backtest usually do so on the TradingView platform or through simple backtesting tools like FX Replay or Forex Tester. Although these solutions may be sufficient for testing simple trading ideas, they are definitely not enough for more advanced or complex trading strategies due to the countless technical limitations associated with their use.
To backtest any trading strategy, you need to switch from retail trader software to professional trader software. Only professional trading platforms like Sierra Chart truly offer unlimited backtesting capabilities, so any of your trading ideas can always be tested against historical data.
3. Trading unproven strategies or relying on gut feelings
The statistics are grim. Approximately 40% of retail traders quit trading after one month, and up to 80% within a year. That is a truly staggering failure rate, which clearly tells us that the odds of succeeding in the markets are heavily stacked against us.
Among the main reasons most retail traders consistently lose money and ultimately end up among the losers is that they trade without a real edge—that is, without a strategy with a positive expected return.
A typical retail trader operates by finding a few simple trading concepts and then using them without verifying whether they can actually generate positive equity curves. They risk their money in the belief that what they learned from some trading influencer on X, Instagram, or YouTube will simply work. You already know what the most common outcome of this approach is.
By skipping backtesting these trading strategies, they set themselves up for failure right from the start, since they don’t know whether they’re entering the market with an edge. In this industry, such an approach is considered gambling, not trading. It’s a world away from what every professional trader is taught: first prove that you can consistently make money in the markets, and only then can you trade.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of novice traders just want to make money quickly and easily. They have unrealistic expectations and never give themselves the time to succeed. That is why they end up trading unproven strategies or based on gut feelings, which is a recipe for failure.
What You Get by Joining the Backtesting Club
Sierra Chart Mastery Course
The Sierra Chart Mastery Course is a series of video tutorials that will help you master the professional Sierra Chart trading platform in a short amount of time.
You will also receive configuration files containing Daniel’s latest settings, so you don’t have to waste time on setup and can jump right into backtesting.
[The course will be completed in the first half of April 2026.]
Backtesting Club Trading Journal
The Backtesting Club Trading Journal is the most advanced Google Sheet on the market for recording and analyzing trades.
It was specifically developed for backtesting and includes a range of smart features that make the process of testing strategies a very enjoyable experience.
Exclusive Discord community
The Backtesting Club Discord server is a great place for traders to share their insights from backtesting sessions and live trading.
There, you’ll find tips on strategies to backtest and, if needed, help with any issues you may have with the Sierra Chart platform or the Trading Journal.
The Best Things I Know series
As the title suggests, this series of short educational videos focuses on the best techniques, concepts, and tools that Daniel has discovered over his 18 years in the trading industry.
The videos cover topics such as backtesting workflows, drawdown reduction, money management techniques, trading metrics, Monte Carlo analysis, position sizing, and much more.
[This content will be published starting in May 2026 at a rate of one to two videos per month.]
Useful tools
As part of your membership, you will also receive several analytical tools to help you understand which trading systems generate the most consistently growing equity curves.
These tools focus on aspects such as simulating trading account performance and various types of money management.
[These tools will be released along with the lessons that relate to them.]
Join the Backtesting Club
Every month, Daniel adds new valuable content to the Backtesting Club.
As it grows, so will the membership price.
So if you want to lock in the best deal, join now while it’s still at the early bird price
Future regular price for annual membership
$597
Early bird price for annual membership
$297
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Daniel teach any of his strategies at the Backtesting Club?
No, Daniel does not share his private strategies. However, the Backtesting Club includes a database of promising strategies that members can backtest or use as inspiration to build their own trading systems.
Why do you prefer Sierra Chart for backtesting?
The Sierra Chart trading platform is currently the best possible choice for traders who perform manual backtesting. Unlike similar software or tools, it does not restrict users in any way regarding how they can backtest. It can be used as a true trading simulator that accurately replays market data exactly as it occurred at the time.
You can learn more about this exceptional platform in the article Why Sierra Chart is the Best Choice for Manually Backtesting Traders.