Backtest is Allocation models' tearsheet, one of the three tabs (Allocation, Backtest, Optimize funds) sharing that workspace's model picker: select two or more models and see how each allocation would have performed. Read how the simulation works, then use the growth chart, drawdown track, monthly views, and a metrics table grouped into Return, Risk, Efficiency, and Consistency. Open it from the tab or from the Backtest row beneath Allocation models in the sidebar.
The comparison needs at least one model with a complete 100% allocation. If no model qualifies, the empty state distinguishes an empty library from incomplete saved models and offers Open Allocation models. Finish an allocation there, then return to Backtest; the tab remains available in Back history.
Getting a fair comparison
- Every curve is indexed from the latest common start date across the selected models, and runs to their earliest common end date, so no figure covers a period one of them lacks. The page names which model (and whether its price or weight history) pins the start. A model with young funds constrains everyone. Check the "Weights / Prices / Period" line under each column.
- Hiding a model with its legend chip only stops drawing that line. The window, and every number the table reports, follow the models you have selected. Untick one to widen the comparison.
- A model's version history is replayed exactly as you recorded it. Each dated version applies from its effective date, and a diamond marks every switch with the weights that changed.
- Extend back extrapolates early weights before a model's first version to lengthen the window. It is on by default at Max, and that stretch draws dashed; set it to Off to see recorded history only.
- The vs benchmark (a ticker from your comparison list) draws as a dashed overlay and adds relative columns: excess CAGR, beta, tracking error, information ratio, up/down capture. To compare models, select them in the list on the left instead. Edit beside it opens the comparison-ticker list, the same shared editor the Overview's chart opens, so a ticker added here shows there too.
Three ways to read the curve
The toggle above the chart switches what the y-axis measures. All three describe the same backtest over the same window.
- $: the growth of $10,000, the value the simulation actually tracks.
- %: cumulative return from the window start, which is the fair comparison when models start at different values.
- %/yr: annualized return so far, the per-year rate that compounds to the return at each date. It is the same figure the CAGR row reports, drawn as it settled, so a model that won on one early run shows its lead decaying rather than looking permanent.
Annualizing needs a year to mean anything. Three months of +8% is not +36%/yr. The %/yr curve therefore begins a year into the window, and the toggle is disabled outright on a window shorter than that. The drawdown track below is unaffected: it keeps measuring real declines from the true window start, including peaks set before the annualized curve begins.
Narrowing the comparison
Sleeve re-runs the backtest on one asset class of each model, renormalized to 100%. This lets you compare two models' bond sleeves head-to-head. Category does the same for one slice category, and combines with Sleeve. A ticker benchmark is not filtered: it stays the whole fund. Explain outperformance decomposes the difference between two models by slice and ticker.
Reading the numbers
The Strengths / Trade-offs cards summarize, per model, which metrics it leads and where it trails the leader. This is the same best/worst ranking the table marks, in a sentence. Hover any metric there or in the table for its one-line definition, and see reading the backtest metrics for what each one is for and why two of them can disagree.
The performance and monthly-return tables are named keyboard regions. Tab to the table boundary and use Left/Right to scroll through model or month columns that do not fit at the current window width.
Underlines mark the best (and with 3+ models, worst) value per column; heat coloring is reserved for the risk-adjusted ratios.