Short answer
- What-if takes the closed trades your current filter shows and re-runs them with a hypothetical exit rule: a stop, a target, break-even, a trailing stop or a time exit.
- It is not a guess: each trade is walked candle by candle over its own real 1-minute price history, from open to its actual close, never past it.
- When one candle would have hit both the stop and the target, the simulator assumes the stop hit first, and flags the trade so the screen says so.
- You get the original result next to the what-if one: net, win rate, profit factor and average R, plus a table of what happened to every trade.
Words used here
- What-if rule
- A hypothetical exit applied after the fact: a stop or target in R or pips, moving the stop to break-even at +N R, a trailing stop, or closing after N hours.
- R (R-multiple)
- A trade's result measured against the risk it started with. A rule needs the trade's own initial stop to convert an R distance into a price.
- Walk
- Replaying a trade's own 1-minute candles in order, from when it opened to when it actually closed, checking the rule against each one.
- Never triggered
- A trade where the what-if rule's level was never reached, so it keeps its real result for that run.
Your own trades, a different ending
Every trader has asked the question after the fact: would a wider stop have saved this trade, or would trailing it have banked more of that big move? What-if answers it with your own recorded trades rather than a hunch, on whatever the journal's filter is currently showing (an instrument, a date range, a playbook), up to 2,000 trades in one run.
The rules, and how they combine
- A stop at N R or N pips from entry.
- A target at N R or N pips from entry.
- Break-even: move the stop to entry once the trade reaches +N R.
- A trailing stop of N pips behind the best price reached.
- A time exit: close after N hours, whatever the price is doing.
Any combination can run together. A rule stated in R needs the trade's own initial stop to become a price distance; without one recorded, that rule resolves to nothing for that trade rather than guessing a stop that was never set.
Walked on the real candles, not estimated
Each trade is replayed on its own 1-minute candles from its real open time to its real close time, never extended past the close that actually happened. The rule is checked against each candle first, and only afterwards does that candle's own high or low get to arm a trailing stop or break-even for the candle that follows, so a single wide candle can never both set a tighter stop from its own extreme and claim to have hit it in the same breath. When one candle would touch both the stop and the target, the stop is assumed to hit first, and the row says so on screen. A trade with no candle history at all is counted and shown separately rather than silently dropped or guessed.
The same money math as everywhere else
The what-if result reuses your trade's own commission, swap and fee: only the exit price changes. It is the same profit-and-loss and R-multiple calculation the Strategy Lab already uses for a backtest, so a what-if run and a Strategy Lab session can never quietly disagree about how a price move turns into money.
What you see: original versus what-if
Net, win rate, profit factor and average R, original next to what-if, plus a per-trade table with the reason each row ended the way it did: stop, target, break-even, trailing, time, never triggered, or no price history. Nothing here is a promise about your next trade; it is an honest replay of what your own past trades would have done under a rule you did not actually use.
What-if is on every paid plan and on the 14-day Pro trial. Use it on a set of closed trades after your review, and read net and average R side by side. For how long a bad run can last, Monte Carlo (also every paid plan) reshuffles your results many times. See /features.
Questions
- 01
Does What-if touch my real trade history?
No. It reads your closed trades and runs a separate calculation; nothing about the original trade record changes.
- 02
What happens when a candle hits both my hypothetical stop and target?
The simulator assumes the stop hit first, since one candle cannot say which came first, and marks the row so you know that assumption was made.
- 03
Can I test an R-based rule on a trade with no recorded stop?
That rule resolves to nothing for that trade specifically; it keeps its real result rather than a guessed one. Trades with a recorded initial stop are unaffected.
- 04
How many trades can one run cover?
Up to 2,000 closed trades from your current filter, on one account at a time (mixing accounts in different currencies would add unlike money together).
- 05
Which plan includes What-if?
Every paid plan and the 14-day Pro trial, the same split as Guards and Monte Carlo. Free sees the page and a plan-gate message, not a broken form.
Sources
Prices, plans and rules change. Check the company's own page before you pay. Product names belong to their owners and are used here only to say which product we mean.
This article is general information, not investment advice. FxMind gives no buy or sell signals and never opens a trade for you.