Chart toggles

Also seen as: display toggles, chart display switches.

What does Inflation-adj. do?

Inflation-adj. redraws the curve in real terms instead of nominal ones — the value restated in the purchasing power of the start of the period, so a rise on the chart means the strategy grew faster than prices rose rather than simply that the number got bigger.

The adjustment uses a real historical monthly inflation series rather than a fixed assumption, so the correction is larger across high-inflation stretches and small across quiet ones. Where a requested date falls before that series begins, a fallback assumption stands in for it. Because both series are pre-computed when the backtest runs, flipping the switch is immediate and nothing is re-simulated. The switch applies to both readings of the Growth chart — the money one and the % one — at the same time.

What does the Benchmark toggle do?

Benchmark shows or hides the dashed benchmark line on the chart. It is on by default and is purely visual: hiding the line does not remove the benchmark from the run, and the metrics table's Benchmark column keeps reporting it either way.

What does Log scale do, and why is it sometimes greyed out?

Log scale replaces the chart's linear value axis with a logarithmic one, so equal vertical distances mean equal percentage changes instead of equal amounts of money. On a linear axis, a curve that compounds looks like it accelerates — the later years are drawn far taller than the early ones purely because the amounts are larger. On a log axis, a constant growth rate is a straight line, which makes it possible to compare the pace of an early stretch against a late one by eye.

Log scale switches itself off and becomes unavailable when the chart contains values that a logarithmic axis cannot plot. A log axis has no position for zero or for a negative number, so the toggle is only offered when the whole visible history stays above zero: every date's total value must be positive, and the benchmark's curve must be positive too. If either fails anywhere in the run, the switch appears off and greyed out rather than silently dropping the offending points. Turning Inflation-adj. on or off is re-checked the same way, because the two series can differ — a run can be log-capable in nominal terms and not in real terms.

One more behaviour follows from the same rule: if the total value is positive throughout but the Cash capital series touches zero at some point — which happens whenever a strategy is fully invested — then Log scale stays available and the Cash capital band is hidden while log is active, because zero cash has no place on a log axis. Switch log back off and the cash band returns.

Log scale applies to the money reading of the Growth chart. The % reading is drawn on a linear axis, since it is already a percentage.

Defaults in Fincanva

• All three toggles start in the same state on every visit: Inflation-adj. off, Benchmark on, Log scale off. They are not saved with the strategy.
• No toggle re-runs the backtest. The metrics table has no equivalent controls of its own, and nothing you switch here changes a figure in it.
• The toggles live on the Capital Growth page's Growth chart. The other analysis pages have their own controls, not these.
• The period buttons and zoom bar beside them narrow the visible date range; they are also display-only.

Worked example

A strategy runs 20 years, from 10,000 to 40,000 — a nominal total return of +300%. Leave every toggle off and the curve rises fourfold, steepening towards the right because each later year adds more money than an early one did.

Turn Log scale on and the same curve straightens out: the four-fold rise now reads as a roughly even climb, and you can see that the strategy grew at a similar percentage pace early and late. Nothing about the result changed — only the axis.

Now turn Inflation-adj. on. Across those 20 years prices roughly doubled, so the real ending value is around 20,000 in start-of-period money and the real total return is closer to +100% than +300%. The final figure on the chart drops by half even though the strategy's nominal result is untouched: the nominal number is what the account held, the real number is what it could buy. The gap between the two readings is one of the largest single differences a long backtest can show, which is why the toggle exists.

What should you read on which setting?

Each setting answers a different question, so there is no "correct" one to leave on. Nominal is what the account balance actually was, and it is the basis of every figure in the metrics table. Real answers what the result was worth, which matters most over long windows and much less over short ones. A linear axis shows amounts of money; a log axis shows rates of change and is the setting on which a long compounding curve is honest about its early years.

The one thing to avoid is comparing two curves drawn on different settings — a real curve and a nominal curve of the same strategy are not the same chart, and neither figure is more "true" than the other.

These figures describe what a strategy would have done on historical data, not what it will do. Fincanva provides no financial advice — see Is this financial advice?.