What does over fitting means_

 

Since the beginnig of my journey as a MQL5 dev I've heard a lot the word over fitting, for my understanding it refers finding an specific set of parameters for an EA to work...

any ideas?

 
Osmar Sandoval Espinosa:

Since the beginnig of my journey as a MQL5 dev I've heard a lot the word over fitting, for my understanding it refers finding an specific set of parameters for an EA to work...

any ideas?

Overfitting is bad. It means you use too many indicators to fit past market behaviour almost perfectly. It normally fails eventually in the current market because markets are non-static, they change from regime to regime. You have to adapt and recognize market regime changes and adapt accordingly. The fewer instruments traded, the fewer indicators and the fewer rules on the long time frames, the better. My two cents.
 
It means your EA is tuned to tightly to past data. It has no room to adapt to future data since the market is always changing.
 

MQL5 Cookbook: Reducing the Effect of Overfitting and Handling the Lack of Quotes - the article 

...and there are several mini-articles in the blogs so you can use search to find them - for example this search results.

MQL5 Cookbook: Reducing the Effect of Overfitting and Handling the Lack of Quotes
MQL5 Cookbook: Reducing the Effect of Overfitting and Handling the Lack of Quotes
  • 2013.09.24
  • www.mql5.com
Whatever trading strategy you use, there will always be a question of what parameters to choose to ensure future profits. This article gives an example of an Expert Advisor with a possibility to optimize multiple symbol parameters at the same time. This method is intended to reduce the effect of overfitting parameters and handle situations where data from a single symbol are not enough for the study.