How do I paper trade?

That.

Should be obvious, or at least 1 minute data.

 

If he's literally doing it on paper, ticks are unnecessary. Simple OHLC candles are sufficient.

 

Depends on how accurate you want to be. Using OHLC bars, instead of ticks, forcing you to make assumptions.

 

If he's literally doing paper and pen trading.... I don't think anything matters haha.

 

Hello,

How do I check if the stop loss was hit first before the take profit mark? This is what confuses the hell out of me. Do I look at all of the candles and see if the candles went near my stop loss?

 

Not sure what else to add except to re-read my previous post.
Maybe you don't like my answer but you gotta do what you gotta to do.
Otherwise, you'll need to guess if you stop loss got hit before your profit tarket.

 

Touched, but yes. I was kind of just kidding though, after all we are living in the 21st century and you can paper trade for free online, no need to waste actual paper!

 

You can use a free charting service. For example https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/CAT/interactive-chart

The chart clearly shows some prices occur before others. If your stop and take profit hit the same bar down to the minimum granularity of the service (1 minute in the above example), estimate which was hit first by using the price that was closer to the open of the bar. If they are the same distance, assume the stop was hit first.

 

I'd say assume the stop was hit regardless of which is closer/same distance.

If a strategy is robust erring on the conservative shouldn't matter.

 

andy, Do you have a hand-written list and a solid understanding of:
What triggers a buy or a sell to open?
What triggers an exit?