MT4 backtest on weekend could be wrong idea

Got few spare hours over weekend and want to do some backtesting of MT4 EAs? Bad idea.. the results are likely to be way off. I had such problem with Alpari MT4 today, most likely other brokers have similar problem. All this goes to spread. Yesterday (it was Friday), I was doing backtesting of new version of one of my EAs, Libra, for all the day. Results were promising, credible and nice. I was doing it for whole evening, almost till midnight, after market close. Since tester optimization runs produced hundreds of passes, I’ve got the optimal one and just wanted to run the backtest on those parameters manually, without optimization turned on. And, I was not able to reproduce such results anymore.. no matter how I tried. Wtf? I asked. Does MT4 optimalization is so skewed? Maybe I have some bug in EA? But how could I insert a bug, which makes system earning 200 pips daily during optimalization, while losing 200 pips during regular backtesting? Moreover the optimization results were very close to my forward test observation, while backtesting were not. But, this problem stopped me out, and since it was almost a midnight and I was pissed off, I decided to give it a break and go to sleep.


Today morning I restarted my research to see what is wrong there – are the results of my whole day of backtesting invalid? What went wrong? So, after a short while I wanted to see the backtest visually. When I ran it and started to watch the chart, almost immediately I’ve noticed that orders are filled way of the chart. What the..? I drawn Ask line and Bid line and got shocked. Typically Alpari have like 2-3 pips spread on GBPCHF. But, my test was running on 15.4 pip spread! My system gets about 4-5 pips per trade on average, and is producing thousands of trades.. no wonder that it started to loose big with such spread. I went to symbol properties – yeah, spread is 154 points. I suspect it is the weekend spread.. so no more backtesting over weekend for me, I have to find another task to focus on http://www.nopik.net/wp-includes/ima...icon_smile.gif We’ll see on Monday. So now I’m slightly relieved and hope is back http://www.nopik.net/wp-includes/ima.../icon_wink.gif


Happy trading and watch your spread…

It is that way from the day Alpari started to use floating spread (actually it is on all brokers who uses floating spread). During a weekend when all the markets are closed all EA-s uses the last spread used in the markets. To do normal Back Test during a weekend you should find a broker which uses fixed spread they are hard to find but there are some still around.

Regards

Kristjan

This situation doesn't happen with fixed spread brokers like FXCM and FXDD. Its a shame not being able to test on the weekend. The results will a little bit different than your broker, but should be close enough.

Nopik,

Lol, welcome to the world of Metatrader.

I simply disconnect my MT4 during the day on Friday while the spreads are ok. Then I can test to my hearts' content all weekend long.

Yeah, dont understand me wrong - I've been using MT4 since 2004, wrote well over 100 eas already, I think I know the platform pretty well.. yet it was the first time I've encountered this problem and it surprised me. Well, one learns all the time

I usually use the following trick:

1. Back up file named symbols.sel when spread is normal. At weekend, replace the current symbols.sel with the backup file
2. If I forgot to backup symbols.sel, I just rename the file to other name (like xsymbols.sel) so that MT4 couldn't find it. This way, you'll get zero spread. Also you'll see warning on journal when you run strategy tester without this fle being present. But as far as i know, the testing run smoothly. Once MT4 get connection to server (when market open), it will immediately create a new symbols.sel file.

Hope this help

I just found this file in here : http://forum.mql4.com/30768

Thanks to fai, the developer of this program, you can use it to adjust the spread in symbols.sel for over the weekend tests.

Good luck

I had the same problem over the weekend with the spread and this is what i figure out to do.

The option it will be to disconect the conection to your broker.

Go to : Options - click in - Server- then check mark the - Enable Proxy Server.

After that click in the right side were it say- Proxy.

A new window open then enter any fake number or letters then click - OK.

This it will enable the false proxy and your meta trader it will stay disconected and you still can use your internet conection to do your another work. Just remember any time you update your meta trader with a new version this settings reset back to normal. Just follow the instruction above againe and you will be ok.

Hope this help.

Cheers $$$