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In short: you want to know how a hedge, like buying a put (an option that pays if the price falls) every year, would have done over past years. This tool rolls the same option setup through history and shows how many rolls paid more than they cost. Its total reaches -100% for any setup that only buys options, because the backtest spends the whole budget on every roll. For what cover costs today, use price_options instead. Tool: backtest_options Use it for “what would this have done”, and only for that. price_options answers what protection costs now and whether that is dear or cheap; this answers what the same shape did over years of rolls. They are different questions and they used to be one answer.
They were split because everything that read them confused the two. The study’s opening price is 2021 by default, at a volatility index of 117.8 against a recent 51.8, and it was quoted as the current price, including once to somebody told a $1,000 hedge runs $343 a year when it was nearer $118.

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What it answers

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The total is not a loss anybody would take

The sentence under the total explains it. The model spends the whole budget on premiums each roll and reinvests only what the options paid: the first roll’s cost is the entire capital, the second roll’s cost is the first roll’s payoff. So any structure that only buys premium returns -100% from every start date. 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 all give the same answer. That is what happens to a premium budget. It is not the return of a hedged portfolio, and not a forecast about the asset. The cost of hedging a position you hold is the COST NOW line in price_options.

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Read won next to the total

A result is a series of rolls: open, hold to expiry, settle, reopen. won counts how many paid more than they cost. A respectable total can come from one lucky roll in ten, and the two readings are very different bets.

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It prints its own price against today’s

Every answer ends with what cover cost at the study’s start, what it costs now, and the multiple between them. This stops the study being mistaken for a quote, which is the confusion that split these two tools apart.

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The skew is a choice, and it moves everything

The same caveat as price_options: the skew is an assumption, not a measurement, and it is the largest lever on every figure. Every answer states the one it used.