How I get 99.9% modelling quality on MT4

Hi there again.

The problem is that when I export (convert) the files to the independant MT4 this is the directory of the logs:C:\Users\Pesho\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\9F86138A4E27C7218E9EC98A5F8D8CA1

and the data is like enormous… do you know how can these directory of the logs can be changed?
Thanks in advance

I’m a newbie can you please tell me what this does

That’s the red button bro, don’t push that the thing will explode :slight_smile:

What about this do you want to know. When your developing your strategy (and there’s is a whole heap variables involved in that) you got three ways to test it. One, sit in front of the screen and go for it - not a bad strategy in itself. Two, go back and study chart after chart. Or three, build a bot and back test it.

It is possible to use mt4 strategy tester to do valid historical research but bro, its not easy and it takes time. Lots and lots of time. Choice is yours

Hi, is this EA available publicly?

If you can get it to work PM bro. It crashed on me when the EURUSD did the same last year. But I have been revisiting it by chance and reckon it’s worth another go. Also got some ideas to improve it.

Hey Bob.

How is the work coming along? The post you mentioned in the beginning of this thread, I read through all of it, every post, and was a bit confused as to why he seemed to up and vanish. Do you think he made it and forgot about us? Lol. Any way, I was wondering what you meant by the EA crashing on you?

Always watch out for the red button :smiley:

Don’t know what happened to the krugman. Personally I don’t mind sharing what I do, right, wrong indifferent. It helps in my learning process. Sometimes I have a bad attitude but that’s just me.

So this particular bot and it crashing, what do I mean. Well I’m happy to say I got caught up in greed. When my friend and I first designed this bot it was as a break-out strategy. But when we started back testing results indicated that it could also be a very good scalping bot that produce far greater returns. So I set it up as a scalper on a live account and let it run. This was on the EURUSD pair, started off ok but then the market topped and reversed and the rest is history. Slippage, commission cost all those variables associated with live trading made it unprofitable. Greed is a killer in this game and I knew that but still got sux into it.

Testing however is a very boring long process, demo or live, and while I was testing I went back to trading off tick charts my first love. And my work has been there since.

But one strategy doesn’t make a plan and I’m looking to diversify across asset classes. The breakout strategy is a valid strategy and I’m looking to revamp this one. Small risk traded over a basket of pairs for a modest return.

Here’s a couple of results just in EURUSD and GBPUSD over 2014



The work never stops and as old m8 Jake says, you have to work harder than everybody else.

Sorry man, my knowledge is next to zip on EAs. Why did the bot crash when the pair reversed? Is it not able to switch sides? My terminology is probably off (switch sides) but I don’t get how it lost it when the market reversed?
And if I ever learn a thing or two about creating EAs, I would love to help, but since I don’t have that knowledge now, probably not much I can do lol.

Na it had lots to do with what I was trying to do and that was scalp. Demo and back testing are very different to that of a live account. A little problem known as slippage, spread and the effects of commission become real. Now this isn’t too much of an issue when chasing 50, 100 or 200 pips. But when you’re chasing only 1 or 2 it becomes very real. During back testing and on a demo price always gets filled at the requested price, but expose yourself to a live environment and the for-mention issues come into play. A lesson learnt on my side.

So again I go back to my original belief. For us armchair speculators bots are great for doing the research and testing of our strategies but that’s where it ends. As a general rule.

Thank you for sharing this.
Everything worked properly and I managed to get data from 2006 to 2014.

Testing is done with 99.9% quality.
One issue though and I still haven’t figured it out yet.

When I try to do a backtest on the full period (2006-2014) it always stops somewhere around 2010.
And if I try to to the backtest for 2011-2014, the testing will not start.

Any ideas why? I tried re-downloading and re-converting the data. Didn’t help.

Sorry for taking my time in getting back to you. My understanding is that MT4 can only access 4G of data for backtesting. Given that a year can represents 1 G then you can only handle 4 to 5 years testing at a time. However Birts tick data suite does overcome this. Its one of the reasons I use both programs. Also Birts tick data suite allows me to open multiple windows for testing.

Are you using the tickstory lite, Birts tick data suite or both my friend?

Great post and explanation, I will definitely use some of these suggestions

Thanks Bobbillbrowne

Tickstory Lite version 1.8.5 is proving problematic. I cannot launch MT4 build 1010 through it although it should be supported; therefore I cannot Back-test with 99% model quality.

The Tick story forum posts suggest that this is a recurring problem for multiple users, I am trying to register and submit my own query there but still waiting for the activation email to log into the forum

So far not so good.

G’day bro.

This is still the very method I use to collect, convert and test with. All runs perfect for myself although I’m still running 1.8.4. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I will go into this a bit more later.

Can I ask a couple of questions bro? Do you run a separate platform for testing? I don’t understand why but system in-stability can occur if you also have a live data feed coming into the testing platform. Guess that’s something to do with how MT4 stores data. Second, do you run Brit’s Tickdata suite as well?

As a patch, it is far superior to back test with over tickstory. You can open multiple windows, no restrictions on data size, variable spread, slippage feature and a no update feature for the platform. There is a small monthly fee but personally I think it is so worth it to have complete confidence in you back testing process.

Now, to the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it statement. Keep copies of previous builds metaeditor.exe and terminal.exe files. These problems you are experiencing do happen on a regular basis every-time MT4 upgrades. The simplest and best solution I have found is to just reinstall the previous last build version of these files you where comfortable testing with prior. Up to build 1010 I was testing on build 910.

Hope some of that helps, happy backtesting

Bob

Also, please remember the 99.9% figure is just that, a figure. It is nothing more that text in the header of a .fxt file. However it is representative of the effort one has put in to secure quality data for the purpose of back testing.

Thanks for this and the main post. I’m sure it will work out finally. Can you post the Terminal.exe file for MT4 Build 910 here.

hi bobbillbrowne…
i already follow your tutorial but i have some issue.
i’m already using the tick story lite and purchase it license too, but when i’m exporting to MT4 there was an error message :


it was an error message and the status is complete but when i opened the folder where the file exported the file size is only 1kb



any solution for this one? thanks

Sorry bro, but the answers is going to be yes and no. Yes I do have a solution but it will be a relatively small cost.

First the no. On the information you have shown, it’s impossible to know what went wrong. My two ports of call would be first their user manual Tickstory Help and Knowledge Base [Manual & Knowledge Base] then the forum Tickstory • Index page .

Now for the yes solution but cost money. Delete tickstory off your computer and buy Tickdata Suite v2.2. https://eareview.net/ . As of October last year, to anyone serious about using MT4 as a backtesting program this is only plugin you need. All that ginning around in the first few post are now void. And their support is first class. I had a major problem with the last update. I perform computer maintenance on a Sunday. I updated the plugin and when to restart MT4 and nothing. Contacted support and had a reply by 8:15am GMT. 3 hrs later problem solved. Not bad on a 8 hr time difference and on a Sunday. Turns out cCleaner is not that great a piece of software. It tends to delete some necessary files plugins like Tickdata Suite need. Consequently the .exe files were deleted and could not be re-installed.

But I’m not here to market or promote anyone. I believe it is up to the individual to do their own research. So I wish you the best and hope you find some solutions with the information I have provided.

Bob

Is this thread still alive?

I see that the links in the very first post are no longer working. Are they still relevant to read? If so is it possible to read them anymore?

Thanks for your time. Very much appreciated :slight_smile:

Fred