Auto-Generated Trade Markers for Closed Positions (Post-Trade Visual Overlay)

Add a tool that automatically draws entry, stop-loss, and take-profit levels on the chart immediately after a trade is closed, creating a permanent, visual history of every trade directly on the price chart. The visualisation should be similar to the existing Risk/Reward (Buy/Sell) tool, but instead of requiring manual placement, it would appear automatically based on the trade’s actual parameters and remain visible throughout the entire backtesting history. This would dramatically speed up the visual review phase of backtesting.

2. Current Situation & Problem

• At present, after closing a trade in manual or automated backtesting, the only way to visually see where the trade was entered, where the stop-loss sat, and where the take-profit was located is to:

  • Manually place the Risk/Reward Buy Sell tool on the chart for every single trade, or

  • Keep the trade’s order lines visible before closing (which then disappear), or

  • Scroll through the account history tab and mentally map each closed trade back onto price action.

• This process is extremely time‑consuming, especially when reviewing dozens or hundreds of trades during a thorough backtest. It makes it hard to quickly scan the chart and spot patterns like:

  • Clusters of losing/winning trades around key levels,

  • Trades that were stopped out prematurely,

  • Runners that could have been held longer,

  • Consistency of entry timing relative to market structure.

• The current workflow forces the analyst to choose between deep, slow analysis and fast but superficial review. Many users end up skipping the visual inspection step altogether, missing valuable insights.

3. Proposed Solution

Introduce a “Trade History Overlay” feature that, once a trade is closed (either manually or by a strategy), automatically places graphical objects on the chart representing:

• Entry point (e.g., a coloured arrow or a short horizontal segment at the entry price)

• Stop-Loss level (horizontal dashed line spanning the trade’s lifetime)

• Take-Profit level (horizontal dashed line spanning the trade’s lifetime)

• Trade outcome label (e.g., “+35 pips” or “-22 pips”) near the close point

• An optional connector line from entry to exit to visualise the trade’s direction and duration.

These markers would remain on the chart for the entire historical period (and across symbol/timeframe changes, if the user chooses), so that when scrolling back over months of data, every single trade can be seen at a glance – just like manually placing a Risk/Reward tool on each one, but fully automated.

The overlay would be non‑intrusive: rendered on a dedicated layer that can be toggled on/off with a single button or hotkey, and customised via a settings panel.

4. Detailed Specifications

4.1 Activation & Behaviour

• Trigger: The system automatically draws the markers when a trade’s status changes to Closed (either manually closed by the user, stopped out, taken profit, or closed by a strategy/EA).

• Persistence: Markers remain indefinitely on the chart as long as the trade exists in the account history. If a trade is deleted from the history, its markers are removed.

• Time Span:

  • Stop-Loss and Take-Profit lines are drawn as horizontal ray/segment that exists only during the trade’s active time (from open time to close time). This clearly shows the period during which those levels were under risk.

  • Alternatively, a “lifetime zone” (semi‑transparent rectangle) could connect entry time to exit time between SL and TP, but simple lines are preferred for clarity.

• Multiple Trades: Overlapping markers are handled gracefully (opacity, layering). The user can choose to see all trades or filter by:

  • Date range

  • Magic number / EA name

  • Symbol

  • Profit/Loss status (e.g., show only losers)

4.2 Visual Design

The appearance should mirror the familiar Risk/Reward tool so users instantly understand it:

• All objects are grouped per trade (e.g., one group per ticket number) so they can be moved or deleted together.

• When the user hovers over any element, a tooltip shows: Ticket #, Open/Close time, Entry/Exit price, P/L, SL/TP levels, and duration.

4.3 Customisation Settings (new tab in Options or chart properties)

• Enable Trade Overlay: On/Off (default On for backtesting projects)

• Show only trades from: All / Last N trades / Date range

• Symbol filter: All symbols / Current chart symbol only

• Show entry markers: Yes/No

• Show SL/TP lines: Yes/No

• Show outcome labels: Yes/No

• SL/TP line style: Dash pattern, width, transparency

• Profit colour / Loss colour / Breakeven colour

• Trade duration zone (optional semi‑transparent rectangle between entry and exit): On/Off

• Max number of trades displayed (to avoid performance issues on very large histories)

4.4 Interaction

• Clicking on a trade’s group selects it and highlights the corresponding row in the Account History tab (and vice‑versa: clicking a closed trade in the history could optionally scroll the chart to that trade’s markers).

• A right‑click context menu on any marker group offers: “Delete visualisation”, “Jump to entry”, “Show trade details”.

• The existing Risk/Reward tool can remain completely unchanged; this feature is an automatic, historical‑data‑driven companion.

5. User Stories

1. As a manual backtester, after I close a trade, I want the entry/SL/TP to stay on the chart so that I can instantly see where I was in the market when reviewing the entire session later.

2. As a strategy developer, after running an EA over 3 years of data in the Strategy Tester, I want every one of the 500 trades drawn on the chart so I can scroll through and visually validate that entries are logical and stops are placed at sensible levels – without spending hours plotting each manually.

3. As a trading coach, I want to open a student’s backtest file and immediately see all their closed trades overlaid on the chart, colour‑coded by win/loss, to quickly diagnose behavioural patterns.

4. As a performance analyst, I want to filter the overlay to show only losing trades on a specific currency pair, then visually inspect what price action did after being stopped out.

6. Benefits

• Massive time saving: Eliminates the need to manually mark up every trade for visual review.

• Better insight: Turns the chart into an instant heat‑map of trading performance, making it easy to see if entries are consistent, if stops are too tight/wide, and if profit targets are realistic.

• Enhanced learning: Beginners can immediately see how their decisions played out over time, reinforcing good habits.

• Seamless workflow: The feature would integrate naturally into the existing backtesting environment, making Forex Tester Online an even more powerful post‑analysis tool without adding complexity to the trading process itself.

7. Technical Considerations

• The drawing objects should be stored in the project file so that reopening a project fully restores all trade markers.

• For projects with thousands of trades, implement a performance‑optimised rendering (e.g., only draw markers visible in the current viewport, limit detail when zoomed out far).

• The data needed (entry price, SL, TP, close price, open/close time, P/L) is already present in the trade history database, so the feature is a presentation‑layer addition.

• A new API function for third‑party EAs/scripts would be a valuable extension (e.g., DrawTradeOnChart(int ticket)), but the core auto‑draw behaviour is the priority.

8. Additional Ideas (Future Enhancements)

• Partial close visualisation: Show partial exit levels with a different line style.

• Trailing stop trail: Draw the path of a trailing stop as a stepping line.

• Risk percentage display: Show risk as % of account next to the entry label.

• Export image: Ability to export the chart with overlays as a PNG for journaling.

Thank you for considering this feature. It would transform the backtesting review process and is, in my opinion, one of the highest‑impact improvements that could be made to Forex Tester Online’s workflow.