The “correlation” chart displays overlaid Balance (blue) and Price (black) charts. In addition, markers can be added to show the trades for one or more strategies. In this way we can (a) determine whether there is any correlation between strategies in terms of their trading patterns, and (b) better see how our strategies and portfolio performs during different market conditions — e.g. trending up, trending down, ranging, etc.

To use this feature it is necessary to import Price chart data (in CSV format) from MetaTrader. If you are not sure how to do this, you can Google “mt4 save csv price chart”. The period (i.e. time frame) does not matter — that is up to you. However, what is important is the data horizon of this data set must include all the dates in your Account History. Also, keep in mind this is a date-based chart (i.e. the X-axis is a date), compared to a trade-based chart where the X-axis is Trade #.

Once the Price chart data is loaded then the graph displays overlaid Balance (blue) and Price (black) charts. The black squares represent the close prices for the bar data that was imported. You may see what appears to be gaps in the Price chart — these are not gaps but, rather, weekend dates when the market is closed. From these overlaid charts it may be interesting to examine how your portfolio, as a whole, performs during different market conditions (i.e. when the price trends up, down or is ranging).

By selecting strategies (magic numbers) from the list then colored markers are added to the Balance chart to show the dates their trades were closed. This information is interesting for a couple of reasons: (a) it shows how strategies perform during different market conditions, and (b) you can see whether or not there is any correlation between the trading patterns of different strategies. If the trading patterns are similar for two strategies it might mean they are duplicates, or it might mean they are equally effective at generating open and close signals.

Using the ‘Show All’ and ‘Clear’ buttons in the upper-right portion of the graph will display (or hide) all the trades for all the strategies. This may be interesting in that now you can see how your portfolio performs, as a whole, across different market conditions.