Futures trade whole contracts. A forex or crypto broker sells a size in small steps instead, such as 0.01 of a lot or 0.0001 of a coin, and has a smallest order it will take. When a test is on a forex or crypto market, Wildflower sizes each trade in your broker's steps. Futures are still sized in whole contracts, including the micro euro, Australian dollar and British pound futures and Micro Bitcoin.
What you tell Wildflower
- Your broker's size step: the smallest amount a size can move by.
- Your broker's smallest size.
- For a metal or an index, the units in one lot. A currency pair's lot is always 100,000 units. A lot of gold, silver or an index such as GER40, NAS100 or US30 is your broker's own, so you enter the figure your broker gives.
- A conversion rate, when the market isn't priced in dollars. Your risk is in dollars, so the value of a pip has to be turned into dollars. EURUSD, XAUUSD, NAS100 and BTCUSD need nothing. USDJPY uses its own price at each trade. A cross such as EURGBP needs the GBPUSD rate, an index priced in euros such as GER40 needs the EURUSD rate, and a market priced in a stablecoin, such as BTCUSDT, needs that coin's rate to the dollar. You can give one rate, or a series of rates so each trade uses the rate at its own time.
Wildflower never fills these in for you. If a lot size or a rate the market needs is missing, the test doesn't start, and it says which one.
How a trade is sized
Wildflower works out what one step of size would lose, in dollars, if the stop is hit. It then takes as many whole steps as your maximum dollar risk per trade allows. It always rounds down, and checks the risk again after rounding, so a trade never risks more than your maximum. If not even your broker's smallest size fits, the trade is skipped and the reason is shown.
For example, with a 20-pip stop on EURUSD and a $50 maximum, 0.01 lots risks $2, so the trade is 0.25 lots. With a $49.99 maximum it is 0.24 lots, because 0.25 would risk $50.
If you chose a number of lots or coins per trade, that is the most a trade takes, and the maximum dollar risk still applies.
Profit, loss and fees are worked out on that exact size. Your own fee is charged per lot or per coin.
Live trading
Forex and crypto can be backtested. Wildflower doesn't connect to a forex or crypto broker yet, so a strategy on those markets can't be put on a live account.