Backtesting is not trivial and needs to be addressed...
Well -intentioned rant follows:
There are hundreds of pages on the forum regarding Backtesting limitations and errors, yet a search in the book and documentation reveal nothing in the way of workable solutions.
What errors are you referring to ? there is information regarding the limitations of the Strategy Tester: Testing Features and Limits in MetaTrader 4
I demand world-class backtesting perfomance in any trading platform.
- Don't preach to the choir. Stop ranting and if you want help you must post your problem and your code.
- Don't demand anything from us users. We're not your slaves, We owe you nothing. If you want it, stop using the free mq4, pay for a real platform and use their customer service.
- Don't preach to the choir. Stop ranting and if you want help you must post your problem and your code.
- Don't demand anything from us users. We're not your slaves, We owe you nothing. If you want it, stop using the free mq4, pay for a real platform and use their customer service.
Here's two cobbled-up answers to my problem, Choirmaster... and I'm not demanding anything from you, but FOR you- from Metaquotes. I program in aerospace for a living, and I would be ashamed to code anything less than perfect!
This: http://www.mt4i.com/appstore/app.aspx?id=5, added to an offline MT4 (described elsewhere in the Forum, use search) downloaded from Metaquotes, not a broker- with downloaded History records back to 1971, solves this: https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/137872.
Now the less fortunate among us can profit from my suffering, and perhaps Metaquotes will BUILD IN THESE CAPABILITIES TO A FUTURE UPDATE...
I should get paid for this (and so should you, Choirmaster- and Raptor, too)...
Females ALWAYS reserve the right to rant : )
Backtesting is key to successful development...
Here's two cobbled-up answers to my problem, Choirmaster... and I'm not demanding anything from you, but FOR you- from Metaquotes. I program in aerospace for a living, and I would be ashamed to code anything less than perfect!
This: http://www.mt4i.com/appstore/app.aspx?id=5, added to an offline MT4 (described elsewhere in the Forum, use search) downloaded from Metaquotes, not a broker- with downloaded History records back to 1971, solves this: https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/137872.
Now the less fortunate among us can profit from my suffering, and perhaps Metaquotes will BUILD IN THESE CAPABILITIES TO A FUTURE UPDATE...
I should get paid for this (and so should you, Choirmaster- and Raptor, too)...
Females ALWAYS reserve the right to rant : )
Backtesting is key to successful development...
There is no point ranting about your lack of understanding about how Forex markets and MT4 work . . . do some research, learn, just like some others have then you will have the knowledge and information you need to use your tools effectively, how does the saying go . . . "a bad workman blames his tools" ?
Fact - Brokers raise their Spread at the weekend, if you don't want to "see" this spread find a Broker with fixed Spreads or disconnect from your Broker when their Spread is at a level you want and then use the Strategy Tester, I have posed about how to do this several times, https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/134956 but people don't want to search, read and learn, they just want to rant and get others to do the work for them.
We continuously have people asking about errors with trading functions, yet they don't check the function return values and don't report the errors and the relevant variables, such as Bid, Ask, entry price, trade type, Freezelevel, Stoplevel, etc . . . they don't have the information pertinent to the issue yet they expect someone else to be able to fix it for them . . . so I created this: What are Function return values ? How do I use them ? I post it whenever I see a question where it is relevant, people still don't take useful advice even when it is spelled out for them.
I do agree with you though, the Strategy Tester is a key component of mql4 code development, and I will add that it is also critical to strategy evaluation . . . assuming that one has a strategy that can be evaluated using the Strategy Tester, some cannot.
Rant over.
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Well -intentioned rant follows:
There are hundreds of pages on the forum regarding Backtesting limitations and errors, yet a search in the book and documentation reveal nothing in the way of workable solutions.
I have spent the last week addressing the well-documented problems with backtesting in MT4, and it has cost my company REAL MONEY in lost trading time.
Because of this issue, we will not even consider using MT5, even if our broker were to offer it (they don't).
We are looking for alternatives, open-source (free) or paid (premium) SPECIFICALLY because of the poor quality of MT4 backtesting.
I am sharing this because I like every other aspect of MT4, and of Metaquotes. I want Metaquotes to address this issue head-on, not by offering an upgrade to to MT5 etc. but by FIXING MT4 and the Metaquotes History Center so that traders can run REAL accurate repeatable scientific backtests.
In that way, Metaquotes can continue to prosper as the LEADER in Forex software.
Extensive backtesting and live forward testing is the difference between bankruptcy and winning. As a winner, I demand world-class backtesting perfomance in any trading platform.
In the end, it is the TRADERS and their needs that will dictate the content of any platform. And the TRADERS need honest backtesting data and trustworthy algorithms.
End of rant.