Strategy Tester Every tick vs Every tick based on real ticks

[HF Mohammad]

Hello

I want use ECN mode for trading

I programming a robot for auto trader

If in strategy tester I use every tick, my profit will be 12$

But if I use every tick based on real ticks, my profit will be -3$

Why?!

And which is better and close to real market?

Thank you

[Zeke Yaeger]

Hi
when you use the every tick mode, the ticks are randomly managed (only the open, close highest and lowest are true values, the other are approximations to make the backtest faster) in the tester, while, with the mode based on real tick, the real ticks of the history are received.

Nevertheless, the tester assumes that your program will be able to process all the ticks, which is far from being the case in reality. During a volatile session for example, unless your algo is extremely well coded and optimized, there are some (many?) ticks that will be missed.

So I would say that the mode based on real tick is not the closest but the least far from reality.
You have to work on your code to be able to process only on the ticks that are important to you, for example at the opening of the candle.

[Sergey Golubev]

Testing trading strategies on real ticks and the explanation is on this post. 

[HF Mohammad]

Thank you guys <3

[Gunnar Forsgren]

Zeke Yaeger #:

Hi
when you use the every tick mode, the ticks are randomly managed (only the open, close highest and lowest are true values, the other are approximations to make the backtest faster) in the tester, while, with the mode based on real tick, the real ticks of the history are received.

Nevertheless, the tester assumes that your program will be able to process all the ticks, which is far from being the case in reality. During a volatile session for example, unless your algo is extremely well coded and optimized, there are some (many?) ticks that will be missed.

So I would say that the mode based on real tick is not the closest but the least far from reality.
You have to work on your code to be able to process only on the ticks that are important to you, for example at the opening of the candle.

How come "almost all EAs" seem unable to make any profit in Strategy Tester mode "ticks based on real ticks" ? Are they all inadequatly designed ?  You often have to turn off trailing stop mode and such and use conventional Take Profit settings to see any profit at all. Trailing mode a feature that is seen as fundamental for making profit nowadays ? Or did the market inject data in there purposely designed to throw EAs out of the game ?

[Gunnar Forsgren]

Gunnar Forsgren #:
How come "almost all EAs" seem unable to make any profit in Strategy Tester mode "ticks based on real ticks" ? Are they all inadequatly designed ?  You often have to turn off trailing stop mode and such and use conventional Take Profit settings to see any profit at all. Trailing mode a feature that is seen as fundamental for making profit nowadays ? Or did the market inject data in there purposely designed to throw EAs out of the game ?

This my 'proposterous' statement regarded scalper EAs that run on M1 timeframe. I observe that running in real account the result is often better than test results from ticks based on real ticks. So I am not sure how to get Strategy Tester results closer to actual use. Ideally based on real ticks ought to be the real deal. I was thinking of testing using "modified real tick data" where I reduce spread in order to compensate and bring test results on par with real account thinking maybe that helps the strategy tester come up with optimized settings that yield better results on real account. But I guess parameters could affect that makes this difficult to advise on, internet connection latency, etc. so I welcome tips on what to look for.