How to back test an EA

Hi

I regard my self as a good trader I come up with some good ideas all posted on FF..BUT when it comes to back testing I dont know the difference between my start step or stop !

Ronald Raygun kindly sent me through a link which I found helpful

I open Strategy tester,load the Ea and the Symbol,I select every tick and set the date to test in this case just 1 day I select my time period as 5min and click the optimization box

I have looked at the Expert properties and I think this is where I am going wrong because I dont know what to click or set in here..

I click start and it collects the data and then it finishes I look in the results section and there is nothing there..

Now I know Im making a major boo boo here but dont know where

If some kind sole will put me out of my misery Id be greatful

Cheers

paulus

Expert Properties is where you would set all the external parameters for your EA. You also set the starting capital and decide if it takes long & short positions

HI LTBF

Thanks

I have selected 10k usd long and short

What do I set in the Inputs tab ie do i click 'magic number'

sorry for the dumb questions

Paulus

The inputs tab items are particular to your EA. These are the parameters that your EA uses so I couldnt tell you what to put in each without knowing your EA. Your programmer should have explained to you what each parameter is.

Magic number is used to manage the individual trades by the EA. It doesnt matter what you put as long as its a whole number and it is unique to the EA (which it will be in the tester)

ok thanks

Still dont understand this..

I know once i get the thing to work it will be a piece of cake

Its so frustrating having an Ea but unable to do any testing on it arghhhhhhhh

paulus

well anyone who became a strong backtester spent their blood and tears just like you are now

struggling through to learn the basic ropes of something truly complicated

make sure you have M1 data from alpari loaded and then use the period converter script to carve out the higher timeframes the EA uses (M5, M15, whatever)

otherwise your backtests are erroneous.

Thanks TD

Gloves off then ..hmmmm


P