MT4 data between brokers ~ anyone else having this problem?

Beginner Questions
1

Okay, so, I’m happily scalping away tonight on a demo account. EURUSD 1 minute.

Active: Oanda FxTrade, Oanda MT4.

I’m watching the MT4, using CCI zero line rejects, and happily taking pips.

Then, as I’ve noticed many, many times before… the MT4 candles just… hang. No data. Not working.

And when does this happen? EXACTLY on a CCI zero line reject… I look over at FxTrade and it’s putting candles down as if nothing ever happened. But the MT4? No data for about two solid minutes.

Fishy, I think. If it was my internet connexion, I should see some interruption of the FxTrade candles too, yes? But FxTrade is doing just fine.

Curious, I fire up a Deltastock demo account on a separate MT4 (now the 3rd chart program running ~ purplepatch recommended it for VSA a while back) ~ it’s fine, putting candles just fine. Alright. Just a glitch on Oanda MT4 I guess. How serious could it be…

About half an hour passes; I’m up 1% scalping, market ain’t great but I’m doing okay.

I enter another trade, watching Oanda MT4… candle’s not moving. Well, that happens a lot. Suddenly I hear the sound of my stop loss from FxTrade. The Oanda MT4 candle is still stuck. PRECISELY when I needed my trade info the most. Gah!

I check Deltastock MT4, still running and faithfully recording candles smoothly right through it.

Needless to say… I’m not sure where the problem is, but, this is completely unacceptable. Deltastock’s one minute candles are near dead~exact to Oanda’s FxTrade tonight on EURUSD 1M, had I been using that instead of Oanda’s MT4, everything would have been fine.

Question:

Is this sort of thing unusual?

My cable internet can act up, but clearly wasn’t, if a different broker/feed and the java trading platform operated smoothly right through all of this. More to the point, this was my ‘disciplined scalping’ demo account, a precursor to going live at pennies per pip level. Hitting Oanda’s mandatory minimum 5 pip stop isn’t funny at all, when scalping on 1M timeframes.

I suppose the Deltastock feed is sufficient, but I just got a very… unnerving feeling about all of this. Why would MT4 candles suddenly stop, if my cable proved to be just fine on 2 other feeds, and the computer here is barely under any load at all?

I think I am done with Oanda MT4 unless this problem can be mitigated, but now have to contend with the possiblity that Deltastock pips are a bit different than Oanda’s, which of course… could happen now and then.

If anyone has run into this sort of thing, and found a solution, I’m very, very interested. Are interruptions like this caused on the broker side, perhaps?

2

This doesn’t happen too often to me but it’s one of the drawdowns of scalping, you are limited by the brokers speed and the software you are using. MT4 can be sluggish at times even if you have a good connection. I’ve never noticed a whole two minute gap in the prices before, but if one broker was working and the other wasn’t then it can’t have been your connection.

I’d blame MT4. For example I’ve noticed that Fxpro’s CTrader has much faster execution times and smoother price updates than their MT4 version. Goldenmember has also stated to me a few times how sluggish MT4 is compared with his brokers own client software. If you’re scalping try to get the best connection to your broker than you can, and that probably comes through using their own client software. Try switching to FXTrade and see if there’s a difference. :slight_smile:

3

I think it’s a MT4 issue and the fact your are scalping. That’s why they introduced MT5 (which I haven’t tried) which apparently has faster execution (but apparently many more drawbacks)

4

Thanks for the insights, I can’t quite fathom why one MT4 would act up when the other wouldn’t, save perhaps that I’ve had some charts running for months on the Oanda one, and I’ve got it loaded up with all manner of indicators, templates and so forth from several months of noodling around.

I’ve stripped things down to just two charts running from about 10, hoping that would do it, and am looking for further ‘incidents’ ~ while it was running overnight it did a couple more candle skips, fairly easily identifiable when the candle opens / closes don’t match up. Going to see if it’s better from here on out. If that doesn’t do it: I’ll completely re install and only add in the few indicators / templates that are used.

Very useful feedback, thanks!

5

I trade with Oanda and used their MT4 for charting for a while and I’m sure I remember I kept having problems with it.

6

You are not alone DS, I was having problems with Oanda’s MT4. Like you said the candles would stop printing, while FXtrade hummed right along. I was using a MT4 demo account, and I thought maybe I’d make a live subaccount (but I didn’t fund it haha) for MT4, and I have noticed an improvement on the live server…

If you are already trading on a live server, I dunno man, it’s a really annoying problem. Maybe tech support? heh

7

Just my opinion, but I wouldn’t do anything on demo below M15 and expect the same performance or winners with a real account. The worst what you can see there on demo you will see 10x more on live together with requotes, execution rejections, xxxyyy errors, etc.

I’m not going to say you can’t have a profitable scalper at M1 til M15, but if you wanna get a reliable forward test then use a nano account or something what trades with real bucks. I’d assume that 99% of seeming profitable scalpers on demo then would show up with a bottom line loss with a real account. That’s why you can see often scalping threads on bp or elsewhere with soooo great demo results and if the trader goes live the thread dies.

Frankly, I would not even trade on higher tf’s on demo, because even then you get other results than in real life. A demo is nice to check how the system works, how you can file orders, change a target price, choose a trailing stop, etc. and that’s it. For long term tests you can use backtesting and will save a lot of time, though here again you can’t do it reliable below M30/H1.

Or if you still don’t wanna check it with a real account then look for the results and divide your winners by half and double up your losers. At least. :slight_smile:

8

Plan is to do penny~per~pip trading live so I can get a feel for all that, soonish.

Two reasons I’m not doing that quite yet: still refining my trade discipline (I’ve got some weak spots I want to polish up) and I’ve still got to call the CPA and ask a few questions ~ should I do this personally, through my corporation, and if the tax prep is a no~cost one liner or a whole bunch of expensive to prep forms.

But yes, very much looking at this with an eye toward live nano scale trading; all the nuisance risks like spread increases, internet glitches, MT4 nonsense and so forth add up to X% loss and it’s one more thing absolutely critical to characterise.

I’m rapidly reaching (reached?) the point where a demo account isn’t enough to give me the data I need. Shall likely drop 100 bucks on a live account soon; I’ve already put 200 toward a historic data simulator and it was money well spent, I think. 300 USD to get solid forex experience is piddling nothing; the real cost is time spent.

Incidentally I saw that movie ‘In Time’ I believe it was callled, the other day; there was a bit where this evil old rich guy was trading not with money, but “years of people’s lives” (it’s complicated, you’d have to see it)… he had a million years of ‘life’ credit in his vault whereas most people had barely enough to get them by day to day. In order to keep them working in the factories to earn more. A bit of a tangent, but consider the number of hours that serious chart time is, multiply by what you might make hourly… yes a forex education could be quite expensive in that sense. But it beats playing Wii for the same number of hours and getting nothing…

9

Hi Desmond Sterling (fancy name that)!!! LOL!!!

I COULD say to you: well the answer is obvious i.e. open an account at Deltastock!!! LOL!!! But that would be ‘lame’.

On a serious note:

Insofar as Oanda is concerned and the problem that you were experiencing: I cannot give you an answer. I’m also not prepared to ‘knock’ Oanda (even although I’ve no experience with them at all) because, much like Deltastock, they have VERY VERY VERY few bad reviews posted about them. So whatever it was that was ‘going on’ at the time: I’m ‘at ease’ to say that I doubt very much that it was ‘by design’. Had it been one or two OTHER brokers that I ‘know’ of: there’d be NO doubt in my mind that you were being ‘messed with’!!! And has already been noted: if you had four separate ‘instances’ of MetaTrader 4 running (from different brokers) and only one of them was ‘playing up’ then I doubt that it could be your PC or your Internet connection (although it could be THEIR Internet connection or data feed that had a problem at the time and, unfortunately, ‘in a perfect world’, things like that wouldn’t happen but it’s not ‘a perfect world’ and the Internet gets more users every minute of every day and unfortunately there’s not a whole lot that any of us can do about it).

If you want to do a ‘test’ (for interest sake) to see if it was a connection problem or a data problem with Oanda then try this:

Goto to the ‘history’ folder of your Oanda MetaTrader 4 installation. Within that folder you may have a few folders (that are usually named things like ‘{Broker Name} Live Server 1’ or ‘{Broker Name} Demo Server 1’ i.e. stuff like that). Go into each of those folders and simply delete ALL the files in each of those folders (note: do NOT delete the folders themselves just the files). All you’re doing is effectively deleting all ALREADY downloaded data and ‘forcing’ MetaTrader 4 to re-download ‘fresh’ historical data (in case nobody is aware: MetaTrader downloads data when you open a chart and then simply ‘appends’ new data to the data file so if there is any corrupt data that ALREADY exists in the data file it will simply remain there unless you perform the above). Of course: it would make sense if you make a snapshot of the chart in question FIRST before doing this and then compare the ‘new’ chart (after performing the above). That will tell you whether there was an actual data problem with Oanda or an Internet connection problem. If the ‘new’ chart (after performing the above) is different and doesn’t have the ‘skipped bars’ then it was just an Internet connection issue. The only problem is that you still won’t know where the problem lay i.e. remember that Oanda will be getting it’s feed from MetaQuotes or even, possibly, via a third party or intermediary like Boston Technologies for example.

That’s about as much input on the ‘Oanda issue’ that I can give you.

Now comes the ‘sales pitch’!!! LOL!!!

Why NOT open an account at Deltastock ANYWAY??? For one thing: Deltastock has just recently AGAIN reduced the Deltastock MetaTrader 4 spreads on some of the major pairs (http://www.deltastock.com/english/news/news_main.asp?type=DTrading&date=2011-10-25-02). For another thing: you really could not wish to be trading with a more reliable and, above all, helpful (not to mention well regulated) broker. And NO: in spite of my ‘fancy little title’ here I don’t get paid to tell you this i.e. I’m a trader (at Deltastock obviously) and merely ‘field’ technical questions on their behalf on some forums given that I know their proprietary trading platform known as ‘Delta Trading’ ‘like the back of my hand’. Alright: if you ‘mention my name’ when opening an account I’ll make commissions on your trades but that’s entirely up to you whether you do or whether you don’t i.e. either way it doesn’t affect your trading, trading costs, etc.

LET ME SAY THIS THOUGH: if you are ‘hell bent’ on scalping (which I don’t recommend to be honest but ‘that’s just me’ i.e. personally I think it’s ‘a recipe for EVENTUAL disaster’) then why don’t you take a look at Delta Trading??? It’s a ‘scalper’s dream’. As an example: through the Level II Module of Delta Trading (no dealing desk, true ECN/STP, as well as a choice of liquidity providers for you to choose the ‘best available price’, as well as being able to see the ‘depth of market’) the spread on EUR/USD (for example) normally ‘hovers’ between 0.1 and 0.5 pips at any given time. AND LET ME SAY THIS: you cannot even begin to compare MetaTrader 4 to Delta Trading i.e. Delta Trading is FAR more functional and is a professional trading platform (as opposed to a ‘one size fits all’ type platform like MetaTrader). THEREFORE: it DOES take a bit of work, time, and effort to ‘get used to’. BUT AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT FOR YOU: that’s what I’m here for i.e. to answer any questions and provide any support to you as and when you need it FOR FREE TOO!!! LOL!!! It’s just a suggestion is all.

ONE word of warning though (again: coming from a TRADER and this doesn’t really ‘endear’ me to my beloved broker): if at ALL possible start with more than just $100. Deltastock’s minimum lot size is 1 000 units (which in ‘layman’s terms’ is a ‘micro lot’ if I’m not mistaken). Alright: if you’re scalping then you SHOULD be able to manage risk with $100 but if you decide to move to higher timeframes and change your strategy then it becomes impossible (depending on your trading system of course) to manage your risk. In other words (and I think this is a HUGE point made in the BabyPips School although I’ve not looked at the ‘revamped’ BabyPips School for years): DO NOT BE UNDER CAPITALISED. If I remember correctly the exact phrase used was ‘it’s the number one reason for failure’ (well something like that anyway). Being under capitalised in its turn means that you cannot keep your risk down to 2%, 1% (or IDEALLY 0.1%) per trade. Just bear this in mind is all.

Sooo… There’s MY input on ‘the issue at hand’. I hope that at least SOME of what I’ve posted helps and ‘puts your mind at ease’!!! LOL!!!

Regards,

Dale.

10

From another thread I saw that Oanda was apparently doing some maintenance or something with their MT4 data (according to other forum people; I didn’t see an interruption myself) so if they are taking necessary steps, I can fully understand that sort of situation. Presuming that is even the issue; I’m not sure what it is. All I know is that I’m seeing occasional gaps in the candles, at the same time that other feeds on a comparable, parallel MT4 on the same machine has no gaps.

Regarding Deltastock, I’ve been slowly checking out various brokers… I’m planning on getting two. In another business I import circuitboards from China, and have an ‘80/20’ rule with suppliers… the idea being, never give one factory all your business, because it sets up a bad dynamic. There’s a rental car company that has (had?) the expression: “we are #2, we try harder” ~ it’s really good to have options when you need them.

Deltastock is ok in the USA, yes? Or is it in that grey area for us? I wasn’t quite sure; I’m in the USA and am subject to ‘nanny state’ regulations… I can appreciate those regulations would protect some gambling addicts, but for me it is simply a business obstacle. If I do go with Deltastock I’d happily refer your name ~ though I presume that you only get positive commission on gains, and don’t get negative commission on losses! grin

Scalping itself… well, this is a conundrum.

Last night was a terrible night. I made more mistakes than usual; hit my 5 pip stop something like three times at 50:1 leverage. Ouch! The thing is, I’m still on demo, and if asked to deal with a spider in the bathroom or perhaps there is a particularly hard trigonometry homework problem to assist with at a late~ish hour… I tend to break away. Even mid trade sometimes (loosely depends upon size and species of spider, for instance). Even with all that… 7.74% gain for about 2 hours worth of fuss, and this was far from my best night. Perhaps more critically it’s worth discussing drawdown ~ and this is why I’m still in demo, because I’m possibly in a ‘fortunate streak’ for the last few weeks here; whenever I’ve honestly tried, my worst case was only down a few percent a night.

I’m still not quite ‘believing’ this myself; I suspect it has a lot to do with just being on demo and with a live account things would be radically different. That said: whatever it is, I’m now going for consistency, to be followed by penny~per~pip trading, to be followed by the real deal once skills are proven. Part of the reason I am here at all is because I know a friend who does forex trading, and I asked him about it once. He regularly makes significant money just scalping for about an hour a night and has been doing it for years now, using a small account balance at 500:1… the small account size acting as its own ‘stop’ should anything get really out of hand. It occasionally goes bad but rarely enough; he’s really skilled. All that said, this is a ‘second hand’ story to everyone here and I’m not going to be able to tell his story precisely (I’m not him).

I didn’t want to be a scalper per se; it just seems to… work for me. I wanted to be a swing trader, and still want to be; I’ve been following ICT, eremarket and the reason I have the deltastock feed generally running in the first place is to look for VSA trades. And even with regard to scalping, I want to take the methods and bring them to longer and longer timeframes as time goes by. With proven skills on a live account someday I sure won’t mind capitalising an account sufficiently (why wouldn’t I?) but until that day, I’m not going to put 2500 or 10,000 out there to find out ‘oops not ready yet!!!’… cheaper to be humble for now :slight_smile:

What’s really good is that things have started clicking at all ~ for months I was wondering if there was any real edge to be had, without ten years experience of failed swing trades (for example). Fast scalping really does give an opportunity for several trades a night sometimes; forces the mind to focus, think quickly, use principles and gives immediate feedback. It’s cured a lot of bad habits, oddly enough… you can’t get by for long scalping if you are doing the wrong things; it can shred an account really fast if you get careless. That’s been the real gem about it.

11

Yes, I’ve run into exactly this sort of thing. I have run parallel GFT accounts, one using Dealbook and one using MT4. Often the MT4 price feed seems to freeze, whilst Dealbook continues uninterrupted. When MT4 resumes, it often goes crazy, as if several price changes had been buffered somewhere and then all come at once.

Two possible explanations:

  1. MT4 is not very stable compared to other platforms
  2. My MT4 account gets lower priority service since it is a demo account, whereas I use Dealbook on a live account.

EDIT: GFT recently gave me a new MT4 server address to hook up to; I don’t think there have been any feed delays since then, but I am not sure.