sim with IB

[Stem1]

Hi, I have an account with IB and want to set it up to trade sim and test my automated FX strategies built with the gain feed before going live. I downloaded the correct TWS version and configured it and NT7 all ok. I have some questions that I cant find the answer to in the IB help section;
1. Do I control the live /sim from the account column in the NT strategies window only or do I need to set the TWS to trade sim?
2. When doing a back test, is the SA only using the IB historical data or the stored NT server historical data or a blend? The reason I ask is because IB is only supposed to have 1 year historical FX data but I can pull up a chart with 2 years' data, so how is it doing that?
3. I have been doing all my testing in "tenth pips" and I had to set it to "half pip" for IB, so to retest with the IB data can I just go to whole pips with my profit target and stop loss or do I need to specify the last digit as a 0 or 5 for the half pip? eg: 50 for whole pips, 500 for half pips.
Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Stem1,

1. You determine what account will be traded by your strategy by selecting it in the 'Strategies/New Strategy' window that appears when starting a strategy. TWS does not have control on this.

2. Please see the link below under 'When does NinjaTrader load historical data?' how NinjaTrader loads historical data.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/historical_data.htm

3. You will need to adjust your ATM strategy values now that you use HalfPip.

[Stem1]

Ok, that's sorted. It seems to be able to load only about 300 days of hourly data before it gives the exceeded data box, is this expected behaviour? Is there a work around like loading at a different time of day or something?
If I want to replace the existing historical with only the IB historical, do I bring up a chart for 300 days, right click and reload historical data? Does that wipe all previous data for that instrument and does NT then keep this new historical?
Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Am I correct you refer to the historical data limitation of IB? Unfortunately I am not sure when exactly it will be triggered. I suggest to contact IB for clarification.

I am not aware of any workaround regarding the IB historical data limitation other than to wait 5 minutes and subsequently you will be able to load additional historical data.

Yes, that way it will load the requested historical data from IB and it will be saved.