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Fxpro mt4 Backtesting - Guide

The document provides a guide for backtesting Expert Advisors (EAs) on the MetaTrader 4 platform. It outlines the steps to set up and run a backtest, including selecting the EA, currency pair, time period, and data model. It also describes how to view the backtest results, including trades, balance graph, summary report, and chart. Potential issues that may occur during backtesting like errors or missing data are also discussed.

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Nizar Ramadhan
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247 views9 pages

Fxpro mt4 Backtesting - Guide

The document provides a guide for backtesting Expert Advisors (EAs) on the MetaTrader 4 platform. It outlines the steps to set up and run a backtest, including selecting the EA, currency pair, time period, and data model. It also describes how to view the backtest results, including trades, balance graph, summary report, and chart. Potential issues that may occur during backtesting like errors or missing data are also discussed.

Uploaded by

Nizar Ramadhan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FxPro MT4 Backtest

A backtesting guide for MetaTrader 4

User Guide
2

Disclaimer
Under no circumstances, the backtesting process described in this guide should be interpreted as an indication
of the potential protability of any Expert Advisor. Past performance is not indicative of future results. FxPro
cannot guarantee the accuracy of performance and/ or results of the process described herein. Your individual
circumstances and trading objectives have not been considered. Therefore, this should not be considered as a
personal recommendation or investment advice.

The backtesting functionality of the Metatrader 4 platform allows a trader to check how an EA (Expert
Advisor) would have traded in the past. It allows to test how dierent indicator inputs and other EA
parameters may aect protability as well as allowing developers to test for any errors in the logic of their
strategy.

Backtesting can save a lot of time, since it allows a trader to see trade results quickly, without having to test
it real-time on a demo to gain results. It can also be used as a research tool, allowing a strategy developer
to check how a given setup will work in a range market as opposed to trending market as well other market
conditions.

The following guide will take you through the main steps in backtesting a strategy, as well as some of the
common problems encountered.
3

Enable Strategy Tester


If the Strategy Tester does not appear on the screen, you
can enable it by selecting View → Strategy Tester or simply
click Ctrl+R

the Strategy Tester window should


appear similar to this:

Set Inputs
To set the backtest input values for the
EA, click on Expert properties → Inputs
tab.

Here you can set the value for each of the


EA inputs or simply use the default ones.
Only the ‘Values’ column will be used and
other columns are used for optimization
and are irrelevant for
the backtest.

Select the Expert Advisor from the list


If the Expert Advisor that you wish to select is not in the list, make sure that its placed in the right folder eg:
C:\Program Files\FxPro - Metatrader 4\experts
4

Select Symbol/
Currency pair
You can specify the symbol that you
wish to be used for the backtest by
selecting it from the drop down menu

Select data generation model


Open prices only method will check the prices and react to them only at the open of each bar. ‘Every tick’ method
will do so at every tick. Please note that MT4 does not use historical tick data and instead simulates tick based on 1
minute bars.

For more details about different data models used during testing see: http://articles.mql4.com/70
5

Time Period restrictions

If you want to restrict the EA to backtest over a specific time period, select ‘Use date’.

Now you can press Start (bottom right corner) and you should see the backtest start.

Viewing results

If your backtest was successful , you can view all the results in the results tab.

See the balance graph in the Graph tab


6

You can view the backtest summary report in the Report tab

Here you can see the total net profit that the EA generated during the backtests, as well as other key performance
metrics such as ‘Profit factor’, ‘Drawdown’ and ‘win percentage’. For more information about what all of these
numbers mean, please refer to the following article: http://articles.mql4.com/83

Backtest chart

To view the historical trades plotted on the chart, simply click the ‘Open Chart’ button on the right hand side.

A new chart window will be opened and trades will be drawn on the chart you can scroll back and forth to review the
historical trades of the EA.
7

Backtest troubleshooting

If the backtest does not show any trades or does not happen at all, click on the Journal tab to check for any errors:

If click the ‘Start’ button and backtest does not start, the most likely issue is that there is no data in the history centre

In this case you will need to either Download or import the data

To download historical data go to Tools → History Centre

Select the Symbol that you wish to


backtest for and the download dialog
box will appear.
8

Select the timeframe that you wish


to backtest by double-clicking on it
Then simply click Download

If during your backtest you get ‘Order Send error 130’ or ‘Order Modify error 130’, the take profit or stop loss is too
close to the opening price of the trade or to the current price.

If you see an error similar to this one: there must be an error in the code of the EA and it cannot compile. You will not
be able to backtest the EA until the error is resolved.

If you see an error similar to this one: the EA needs a custom indicator to be present in order for it to work. Please put
the relevant indicator into the ‘indicators’ subfolder of the ‘experts’ folder where your EA is.
FxPro Group Limited is the holding company of FxPro Financial Services Ltd, FxPro UK Limited
and FxPro Global Markets Ltd. FxPro UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial
Conduct Authority (registration no. 509956). FxPro Financial Services Ltd is authorised and
regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (licence no. 078/07) and
authorised by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (‘FSCA’) (authorisation no. 45052).
FxPro Global Markets Ltd is authorised and regulated by the SCB (license no. SIA-F184).

Contact us today
Tel.: +44 (0) 203 151 5550 / E-mail: [email protected]

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