MetaTrader Australia » Strategy Tester

MetaTrader 5 – Strategy Tester Released

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:25:01 +0000

Recently the beta version of MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester was released. This program is the integral part of the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal being designed for the purposes of testing and optimization of MQL5 Expert Advisors.

With the testing you can assess the qualities of your Expert Advisor on history data before launching it in real trading. Optimization allows choosing the most profitable parameters for your Expert Advisor making it a real efficient one. The Strategy Tester is an indispensable tool for developers of Expert Advisors. It is almost impossible to develop a profitable an error-free Expert Advisor without the tester.

As compared to the tester in MetaTrader 4, the new MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester is a more powerful and accurate tool. It has obtained the new function of distributed optimization that will be useful in work with compound Expert Advisors. Besides that, the Strategy Tester offers efficient testing of multi-currency Expert Advisors.

“The Strategy Tester is the last component from the set of required tools for efficient development of Expert Advisors. This set also includes the MQL5, MetaEditor, debugger and execution module in the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal. The absence of a tester was the last obstacle to the wide possibilities provided by the MQL5 environment. We hope that together with the release of MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester, the number of new MQL5 Expert Advisors will sharply increase”, – Stanislav Starikov, the senior developer of MetaTrader 4/5 terminals and MQL4/5, said.

MetaTrader Tips – Saving Chart Templates

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:57:08 +0000

Templates can also be created for charts opened from the Strategy Tester and for charts opened independently.

To create a default template for charts opened from the Strategy Tester, you will need to save a template as “tester.tpl”.

For offline charts, the default template must be “offline.tpl”.

If the “offline.tpl” template is not found when an offline chart is opened, the “default.tpl” template is used. If the “tester.tpl” is not found, the embedded settings are used.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Back Testing

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:36:59 +0000

To back test an expert advisor (EA) follow the steps below.

Open the Strategy Tester window by pressing Ctrl+R
Select the expert advisor you wish to back test
Select the symbol you wish to back test
Select a testing model (every tick model recommended)
Set a testing period
Press Start

MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Optimization

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:03:30 +0000

Let’s look at how to optimize an expert advisor. In the example below we will look to optimize the size of stop loss and take profit.

Expert Optimization Steps

1. Open the Strategy Tester window by pressing Ctrl+R.

2. In the Strategy Tester window, select Expert Properties

3. Select the Optimized parameters ( in our example stop-loss and stop-profit)

4. Enter the initial values of the optimized parameters, step and stop

5. Close the window

6. Select Optimization

7. Choose a model for optimization ( a model “ Open prices only (fastest method to analyze the bar just completed)” corresponds to the most advisors, although for greater accuracy it is possible to test on Every tick (based on all available least timeframes) but then time of optimization substantially will be increased.

8. Press start

9. After completion of optimization, open Optimization result and choose parameters considering a highest income and minimum drawdown. (obviously income should be high and drawdown should be less)

Source: http://www.metatraderglobal.com/612/metatrader-tips-expert-advisor-optimization/

What Is Automated Trading

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:41:12 +0000

Modern technologies allow us not only to trade in financial markets using personal computers, but we can fully automate a trading system now. Using a computer program you can relieve yourself from the routine of analyzing financial markets and performing trades.

Our client terminal has all functions that allow you to develop, test and use your trading system. The development environment named MQL4 is integrated into the terminal. MQL4 consists of MetaEditor, Strategy Tester and Compiler.

To view the full article, please visit: http://www.metatraderglobal.com/384/what-is-automated-trading/

MetaTrader 5 Is More Than Just An MT4 Upgrade

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:14:54 +0000

This is the first in a 5-part series on MetaQuotes upcoming release of the MetaTrader 5 trading platform. The new MT5 platform is not an upgrade of MT4 but rather an entirely new client terminal, written from scratch. As I wrote in a previous Forex Magnates post, MT5 will feature:

5 order types and 4 execution modes available for trading
Implements practically any trading strategies
Built-in reports on all trading activities
Built-in indicators and graphical objects
Allows quicker analysis of quotes and trade decision making
3 chart-types, 21 timeframes and over 70 analytical tools
High performance and outstanding speed
Strategy tester MetaTrader 5

Source: Forex Magnets

MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal – First Screenshots and Information

admin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:20:37 +0000

MetaQuotes has published the first official screenshots and feature information about the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal.

Metatrader 5

Two years ago we started the development of MetaTrader 5 platform. Now this work is approaching completion and by autumn we are planning to release the new platform. Beta testing of the new client terminal and MQL5 development environment starts in summer.

The trading system of the MetaTrader 5 terminal was re-written from scratch, as well as the whole platform. As compared to MetaTrader 4, trading possibilities of the new terminal are much wider. First of all, the MetaTrader 5 terminal allows working in various markets. Directly from the terminal you will be able both to execute trading operation in Forex and work with options, futures and stocks.

Secondly, in addition to already familiar Market Watch, the Depth of Market will be available in MetaTrader 5. This tool is necessary for working in stock markets. Thirdly, the order system is extended: the total number of order types is equal to 5 (in MetaTrader 4 there are 4 types of orders).

MetaTrader 5 terminal supports 4 types of operation execution: Market, Instant, Request and Exchange. The new execution type Exchange is developed for processing trade operations with stock symbols.

Profound differences between notions of position, order and trade appeared in MetaTrader 5. Order is a request to execute a trade operation, the result of which can be a trade. A position is the total state of trades on a certain financial security. Any financial security can have only one position.

Differences between trade positions in MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5

Special reports are available in the new terminal for the convenient analysis of trading activities. Reports show not only initial and final deposit values, but also other parameters. Using these reports, you will know such results of your trading as, for example, GHPR, Z-score, Profit Factor and others.

Analytics

Analyzing price dynamics of financial securities is the most important component of a successful trading experience. In MetaTrader 5 we tried to provide traders with as many analytical tools as possible.

Analytics in MetaTrader 5:

21 timeframes
38 technical indicators
39 graphical objects
4 scaling modes
17 styles of displaying Custom Indicators

Three types of charts are available in MetaTrader 5: broken line, Japanese candlesticks and bars. For the analysis of these data 38 built-in indicators, 39 graphical objects and the large variety of MQL5 indicators can be used. All these analytical tools can be combined in different ways: objects can be applied to indicators; indicators can be built on the basis of other indicators and so on.

The history of quotes in MetaTrader 5 is stored only in M1 form and all charts are built based on them. This solution allows extending the number of timeframes up to 21, so that any period from minute to month can be used to analyze quotes. The main limitation on timeframes is their multiplicity: one hour must contain the integer number of minute periods. The following timeframes comply with this rule: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M10, M12, M15, M20 and M30.

Besides, format of history data storing in MetaTrader 5 is space-efficient. For example, M1 history of GBPUSD quotes for ten years occupies about 10 MB only. This history being downloaded once, you will be able to build any charts on this symbol starting from M1 till MN1.

Autotrading

The integrated development environment MQL5 is responsible for the development and use of Expert Advisors, custom indicators and scripts in MetaTrader 5. It includes MetaEditor 5, MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester and MetaQuotes Language 5 (MQL5).

The MQL5 language for programming trading strategies is distinct for high speed of execution and approaches C++ in terms of this parameter. As compared to MQL4, the new language is 4-20 times quicker. This allows using more complex Expert Advisors able to process large amounts of data per time unit and therefore obtain more precise forecasts of price dynamics. Besides, the new language is object-oriented which makes the development of Expert Advisors quicker and easier.

For writing Expert Advisors MetaEditor 5 is used, which includes the new IntellySence system. It automatically completes various constructions of the language thus quickening the EA development process. The built-in debugger allows to quickly find errors and fix them. After the EA is ready and its compilation is performed, it automatically appears in the terminal and can be immediately started to work in the market.

MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester is a very powerful tool for any developer of Expert Advisors. It helps to obtain results of an EA behavior on the history before using it in real trading. Detailed reports on a trading system allow to estimate the Expert Advisor and detect its weak points, as well as to compare the EA with other developments. Besides, optimization of Expert Advisors allows to define the most efficient parameters of their variables and make the EA maximally profitable.

Source – http://www.metatrader4.com/forum/