Historical data in MT4 includes spread?

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Hi,

I am using MT4 and trying to get a clear answer on this since it seems there were conflicting answers to the question on various threads.

When extracting historical data using HC, the O/H/L/C are Bid prices, correct? So one can simply add their own Spread to the these prices to arrive at the Ask.

Please could someone from Metaquotes verify this.

Thanks in advance.

-j.

 

Hi Jay,

historical charts will show you the correct Bid price, but you won´t be able to identify periods when spread was widened. Apart from these cases, you get the Ask by simply adding spread.

 

So during a backtest using the Tester, historical Ask price = current spread + historical Bid price?


Spread can change over time, just as prices can change over time. So it is a serious flaw if historical Ask prices are calculated using the spread at the time of testing.

Spreads from ECN data feeds are all over the place. Brokers also widen their spreads over the weekend, so any testing done on a weekend produces inferior results.

An EA that I'm working on worsens in backtest performance by half on a weekend. I was shocked when my EA suddenly performed so poorly and thought I made a mistake after changing some code.


I think the only proper way to fix this is to include Ask prices as well in the historical data instead of just Bid prices.


Is there any plan to fix this flaw?

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