Practice with paper trading

Paper trading lets you practice a strategy, or study a backtest you exported from MetaTrader 5, with no real money and no live account connected.

Overview#

What is paper trading?#

Paper trading is a practice and backtest analysis tool built into Oathra. It lets you create manual accounts to practice strategies, test ideas, or import MT5 CSV backtests to analyze past performance without connecting a live account.

Everything works the same as a real account in terms of analytics. You get the full stats dashboard, charts, and performance breakdowns. The only difference is that no real money is involved and trades are not synced from an EA.

When to use it#

Common use cases include:

• Paper trading: Test a new strategy or market without risking real capital. Add trades manually as if you were executing them live.
• Strategy testing: Try changes to your approach (different SL, different pairs, different sessions) in a sandbox before applying them to your real account.
• Backtest analysis: Run a backtest in MT5, export the results as CSV, and import them here to analyze the performance with Oathra's full analytics suite.
• Hypothetical scenarios: Track "what if" scenarios. What if you only traded London session? What if you skipped every Friday trade? Create an account, add the relevant trades, and see the results.

Accounts#

Manual Accounts#

Create a paper trading account by giving it a name and a starting balance. Once created, you can add trades manually. Each trade needs a symbol (e.g. EURUSD), direction (buy or sell), profit/loss amount, and a close reason.

Manual accounts are fully editable. You can keep adding trades over time, building up a history that reflects your paper trading activity. Stats update after each trade is added, just like a real account.

CSV Import#

Import trade history from an MT5 CSV export. The importer auto-detects column mappings so you do not need to manually configure which column is which.

Before importing, you see a preview of the first 5 trades so you can verify the data looks correct. The importer supports up to 500 rows per import. If your backtest has more than 500 trades, split it into multiple files.

CSV import is available on the paid plan. On the free plan you can create manual accounts but cannot import CSV files.

Account Management#

Paper trading accounts support three management actions:

• Pause: Temporarily stops the account from appearing in your portfolio totals. The account and its data are preserved but hidden from aggregated stats.
• Resume: Brings a paused account back into active status. Its trades are included in portfolio calculations again.
• Delete: Permanently removes the account and all its trade data. This cannot be undone.

Manual accounts allow adding new trades at any time. Imported accounts (from CSV) are view-only. You can browse the stats and history but cannot add, edit, or remove individual trades.

Statistics#

Every paper trading account gets a statistics dashboard showing 13 core metrics. These are the same calculations used for real accounts, applied to your simulated trade data.

Total Trades#

The number of closed trades in this paper trading account. A larger sample gives more reliable statistics. See the full guide in Accounts > Performance for detailed interpretation.

Win Rate#

Percentage of trades that closed with a positive P&L. The same calculation as live accounts. Refer to Accounts > Performance for ranges, gotchas, and improvement tips.

Net P&L#

Total profit minus total losses across all trades. This is the bottom line of your paper trading. A positive number means the strategy would have been profitable over this sample.

Avg Win & Avg Loss#

The average dollar amount of your winning trades and losing trades separately. Compare the two to understand your reward-to-risk profile. If your average loss is bigger than your average win, you need a high win rate to compensate.

Profit Factor#

Gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1.0 is profitable, below 1.0 is not. See Accounts > Performance for the full metric guide with ranges and context.

Win & Loss Streaks#

The longest consecutive winning streak and losing streak in the paper trading. Useful for understanding the variance in your strategy and calibrating your risk tolerance. If the max losing streak is 12, you need to be comfortable with 12 losses in a row before this strategy starts working again.

Equity Chart#

A line chart showing the cumulative P&L over time. The x-axis is the trade number (1st trade, 2nd trade, etc.) and the y-axis is the running account balance starting from your initial deposit.

A healthy equity curve trends upward with manageable pullbacks. If you see long flat periods or deep drawdowns, look at which trades caused them and whether they match your strategy rules.