If you're dead set on becoming a prop firm trader, there's one skill you cannot avoid: backtesting. It's not cool, it's not nearly as thrilling as live trading, but it's perhaps the best way to determine if your strategy truly has legs. And when you're trading with MT5 (MetaTrader 5)—the platform that's used by most prop firms—you've got an arsenal of chart styles that can revolutionize the way you test and hone your concepts.

Let’s dissect how to backtest trading strategies with various MT5 chart types in the context of prop firm trading.

Prop firms couldn't care less about how "promising" your strategy appears on paper or how articulate you are when you're describing it to them. They want results. And the quickest way to have confidence in your own system is to put it through backtesting.

Here's why backtesting is so essential in the prop firm world:

But here's where things get interesting: how you backtest on one chart type may not show the same as another. That's why MT5's chart flexibility becomes a massive plus.

There are different types of charts in MT5, and they all give you a slightly varying view of market movement. The big ones you'll be working with are:

You might already have a favorite, but when it comes to backtesting, it’s smart to run your strategy through a few chart types. Sometimes the results surprise you.

Bar charts don't receive as much affection today, but they actually make a great foundation for backtesting. They reveal to you the basics—open, high, low, close—without the "drama" of color in candlesticks.

Many prop traders like to do a “first pass” backtest on bar charts before moving to candlesticks. It’s like proofreading your strategy without all the emotional distractions.

Come on, let's face it—most prop traders live and die by candlesticks. They're not merely points of data; they're little narratives of battles between buyers and sellers. That makes them potent to backtest, particularly when your methodology depends on price action.

Here's how to extract the maximum out of candlestick backtesting in MT5:

The drawback? Candlesticks can also lead you astray into overfitting your strategy to particular patterns. That's why it helps to cross-check outcomes with other chart types.

Line charts are underrated, yet they're a hidden backtesting weapon. They remove all but the closing price. That could sound too simplistic, but in prop firm trading, less often is more.

This comes in particularly handy when trading indices such as the S&P 500 in a prop firm environment, where noise can eat through your daily drawdown in minutes.