How much reliable is forwardtesting?

Hi, everyone. I got this EA and I heard about this forwardtesting. I have a question: How much reliable is this forwardtest? Can it really predict how well the EA would be on one pair? Would like to know your opinion on this.

it is the only true way to test an ea. Try it on one pair for a week, see how it does, then expand to other pairs and monitor the results.

I can believe backtesting the results but forwardtesting? Can it really predict the volatile market? BTW, where can I find forwardtesting system on MT4?

forward testing is not to predict the market, it is to see how the ea performs in a live market. Backtesting is just a start, it will show you if it has any hope at all. forward testing is just running the EA on a demo account for a while to see how it does.

Would you be willing to bet your account on backtesting results?? I hope not.

haha. my bad, I thought forwardtesting was another sort of backtesting but testing it in the future.

No, you're thinking of futuretesting. Thats where you'll get the most accurate test results but it requires very expensive and hard to find data feeds.

The day you discover a way to see into the future, please let me know. I tried using a crystal ball, but it didn't work ...

Hey, Schmin. As I said, those data are very pricey and extremely difficult to come by.

Well said ....

ROTFLOL. Futuretesting... as in downloading your feed straight from the mind of God? Talk about an ECN! I bet the spreads are "to die for" eh?

I don't trust forward testing unless it's on a live account. Slippage, requoting, etc will have a big part in the system performance.

I haven't done so yet, but intend on throwing a couple hundred bucks at the systems I develop. If the system fails I'm out a little bit. If the system works then I'll be positive cash, assured it works with real trades, and can dump more funds into it.

Back testing and forward testing are just steps of Expert Advisor operational procedure. While the EA in development process, we should do much back testing and optimizing. After that, we may try it in some period to run on a demo account with the best setting result produced before. In some case on some broker's metatrader (or most of all), forward testing on demo account produce quite different result. Why? Because those brokers have no big attention on the prices data on those demo servers.

I am personally have a limited margin live account (or limit my EA to use just some part of margin) to do some forward testing. I know how much it will cost me if it fails, either if it is profitable in the real market. It is satisfied me so far.

I am a custom EA and indicator developer. Usually I use these step on my development cycle.

1. Developing strategy on live account data. This process take the most of times; 3-6 months by watching one or some pairs movement patterns base on some calculation or some indicators. Let say this step is market profiling.
2. Coding the strategy. This process could be done in 2-10 hours. I do lots of back testing to know how accurate this EA's actions & bugs troubleshooting.
3. Optimizing & forward testing on demo account.
4. Forward testing on limited margin real account.

I hope my experience about EA help you to understand how important & how to have a reliable forward testing.

Happy trading my friends!

As i can saw from forward testing. Different broker may lead you to differet result.

As for example, there is an EA whereby i test on FXDD and IBFX simultaneously, but i got the result which is completely different at the end.