MT4 Strategy Tester Spread - pips or points?

Hi everybody


I've searched the forum for the answer to this simple question: the MT4 Strategy Tester has the option to give in 'Spread' (under-need 'Period'), which default value is set to '2'. I've always assumed this to be two pips, because that seems pretty normal for most brokers, but today I was testing a simple EA and wondered in how far different values for the Strategy Tester Spread would have an effect on the EA's performance.


Much to my surprise, it seems that the spread is expressed in points, not pips! I know that the makers of MT4 use some suspicious logic at times, but this would really be weird, right? After all, how many brokers offer 2 point spreads? Not for normal (read 'affordable') accounts, right?


This issue became clear to me when I set the spread to 5 and this scalper EA's Take Profit to 3 pips, after which it still made profit!


Would be very pleased if somebody could clear this up for me - I also wanted to bring this issue to the attention of fellow traders who use the MT4 Strategy Tester for tweaking and testing strategies and EA's, because a 2 point spread is close to no spread at all, which could make a scalping strategy or EA look like the Holy Grail, while in reality it's just another loser.




Edit: Found the following explanation at the mql4 forum:


"However, please note that the Spread in the tester is in "points" and not "pips". If you are testing for 5 or 10 pips and your broker is a 5-digit broker, then you will have to use 50 or 100 points to represent the same value in pips."


So, I guess that's the information I wanted to obtain... Come to think of it, If it wasn't for MT4 being free and having all this stuff that only works on their trading interface, I'd have trashed MT4 a long time ago, because of their forced updates (only making annoying changes, instead of improvements - like the latest updates shut down lots of indicators and EA's, go figure...) and general neglect of customers needs.


Cheers!


Ronald

Hi guys,

I have also a question about MT4 spread. I'm trying to retrieve the spread for a symbol by using the following methods:

1. int spread = MarketInfo(symbolName[i],MODE_SPREAD);

2. int spread_int[1];
ArraySetAsSeries(spread_int,true);
int spreads=CopySpread(symbolName[i],PERIOD_D1,0,1,spread_int);

int spread=spread_int[0];

3. MqlRates rates[];
int copied=CopyRates(symbolName[i],PERIOD_D1,0,100,rates);

for(int y =0;y<copied;y++)
if(rates[y].spread!=0)
Print(rates[y].spread);


But the result is always 0.

Is there a way to get Bid and Ask values for all symbols from a script so I can use spread=(ask-bid) ?

Thank you

Edit:

Okay found a way for current spread at least:

symbolName[i] = SymbolName(i,onlySelectedSymbols);
vpoint[i] = MarketInfo(symbolName[i],MODE_POINT);

MqlTick last_tick;
SymbolInfoTick(symbolName[i],last_tick);
vspread[i] = (last_tick.ask-last_tick.bid)/vpoint[i];