Freqtrade Live and Backtest Execution, Fees, and Callbacks
Summary
This reference explains how Freqtrade handles pair naming, fees, and strategy execution. Spot pairs use a base and quote currency, while futures pair names also identify the settlement currency. Profit calculations include fees: simulations use the exchange’s default fee unless a custom fee is supplied, while live trading uses fees applied by the exchange.
The live bot repeatedly refreshes trade and market state, processes strategy indicators and entry or exit signals, manages open orders and positions, and may place new trades when capacity is available. The page contrasts this with backtesting and hyperopt, which load historical data and simulate selected parts of the live process candle by candle. It lists callbacks used at different stages, including price adjustment, order confirmation, and custom exit logic. A key limitation is that callback frequency differs: simulations generally call callbacks at most once per candle, while live execution can call them repeatedly within a candle. That difference can produce mismatches between backtest and live behavior.
Key ideas
- Freqtrade includes fees in profit calculations for simulated and live trading.
- Spot and futures markets use different pair naming formats.
- Live trading runs a repeated loop that checks signals, orders, positions, and trade capacity.
- Backtesting simulates market and strategy activity using historical candles.
- Different callback frequencies can cause backtest behavior to diverge from live execution.
Tags
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.