Is there any Forex software out there on which I can practice trading (manually, not EA’s) on the historical data?
There is “Forex Tester,” but I’m looking for something that is free.
There are some free ones out there floating around. I am sure you can find them. I know of some on another forum that has an F as the first letter in each word of its name. But if you want serious backtesting and simulation forex tester is hard to beat. I personally tried Forex tester and several other commericial ones before buying forex tester. Havent used it much lately. But i really think that its a good tool to have in the toolbox. I can practice anytime any speed I want. So in any given weekend when i usually do my systems refinement I can do atleast 5 years backtesting with very detailed statistics before i put it out there on my live account.
It’s entirely possible to trade on MT4 using some custom simulator scripts ~ it’s not anywhere near as smooth and natural as using software designed for backtest but it can be done. I’d done a fair bit of it before purchasing forextester2. Going off my actions, not my words… I didn’t last long using MT4 for simulation, but then 200 bucks was worth it considering the hours and effort I’m committing anyway.
I managed to find my simulator scripts on another forum; perhaps someone will be so kind as to link to another thread here that has them. My forum search~fu is a bit… terrible for this kind of thing or I’d do it right now, and I don’t remember the name of what I was using.
Regarding backtesting by hand: I found that it was highly useful for eliminating iffy strategies, but actually rather quite difficult to tease out an ‘edge’ (for me, with my limited experience) if that edge might be less than say, 10% a month. It’s very easy to blow through thousands of trades, but… only if you do it rather clumsily. If you take great care with the entries and exits, you will be sitting there a looooong time, to do it right. Even with time compression on data, it doesn’t ‘time compress’ your ability to think through a trade, even if it’s just rote application of your system.
I haven’t got into scripting backtests yet; I’m a forex ‘pup’ and not a big dog, though should that day ever come I might subscribe to Ninjatrader or something like that.
As it is, due to the (in my case) very coarse resolution of ‘winning’ strategies in historical back test, I’ve moved to scalping for a while. This is worth an explanation, not the least because likely I’m doing something wrong during my historic backtesting; this is likely. I suspect I’m botching my trade exits mostly.
For instance, Robo Pip published backtest results of the ‘Trend is your Friend’ system recently and I went to try my hand at that to see how I did, following the same system. My results historically trading by hand: not a terrible loss, but not the clear positive result that an accomplished trader can get with the same strategy over the same timeframe. This made very clear that the issue was PEBKAC: ‘problem exists between keyboard and chair’ …
Needless to say, just knowing my own weakness as compared to a standard is highly, highly valuable information. So: why scalping instead of more historic trading? Depending how you scalp, you are basically ‘learning’ in a high speed environment that is ‘loosely’ comparable to longer timeframes. Well, in fact a lot worse, and not all strategies will work very well at all below say, a 1 or 4 hour timeframe. But I figure it this way: if I can get battle~hardened with a scalping strategy, especially one that scales up to longer timeframes, that will be one wicked ‘boot camp’ that will improve insight just about everywhere, for the long run. Again, this may be flawed thinking, but it’s what I’m doing. If 200 dollars is a lot to you, this might work for you also. Consider that a historical data simulator won’t give you the economic environment information you might otherwise use, such as futures data, news &c so it’s really kind of a technical trading tool only.
I’m having my first real ‘revelatory’ days with forex lately… it could be just a statistical anomaly but I’ve found great success with ‘CCI hook’ trades using the CCI indicator. It’s an indicator, yes, but just sort of highlights what price is doing in a brutally clear manner, to my mind. Demo account scalping in such manner may well serve as a ‘freebie’ sort of historic simulator so long as you are willing to use strategies that can work on extremely short time frames.
MeiHua - I know the website that you’re talking about. I’ll take a look there.
Desmond - Yes, that’s similar to what I am trying to accomplish here. They say it takes 3 years to be a successful trader, so I figured maybe I can get the same experience that those successful traders got, in a shorter time frame.
Thanks guys.
Might this help -http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/40496-historical-data-download.html#post278041
Okay, I was able to use it for the first few days, but now it has stopped working. I just get a “waiting for update” but the chart never loads…
Am I the only one having this problem?
Not sure about that particular program but sometimes if your practicing on the weekend you can encounter problems. This is due to the datafeed your using from your broker. Sometimes the spread will widen to a massive amount or no prices/off quote errors. This is the main reason I use forex tester. I can download historical data for all my currencies and use them anytime. Not dependent at all in my brokers feed. I also can adjust the speed and start and end dates over a 10 year time, as well as my spread to match my brokers usual offering. Actually I began to double it to put it on “hardcore mode” . Because the last few years there have been huge changes in the markets landscape . The economic downturn / recession several years ago. The flash crash and now europes debt crisis. You might build a system that works in these conditions but the more “stable” times of the early 2000s are a different animal. Thus allowing you to make sure you can trade in many different market cycles or phases. That was a complete tangent so i will stop and not jack your thread. But complete control of your simulation environment is a crucial element for me.
This is what happens - it just says “waiting for update”, but it never loads:
Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but it’s been two weeks now, I’ve tried it every day since then and it still won’t work. I’ve tried reinstalling MT4, the script EA - and I’ve even tried different brokers.
I also visited FF and left a message over there, but it’s been a few days and no-one seems to have noticed.
This is the main reason I use forex tester. I can download historical data for all my currencies and use them anytime. Not dependent at all in my brokers feed. I also can adjust the speed and start and end dates over a 10 year time, as well as my spread to match my brokers usual offering. Actually I began to double it to put it on “hardcore mode” . Because the last few years there have been huge changes in the markets landscape . The economic downturn / recession several years ago. The flash crash and now europes debt crisis. You might build a system that works in these conditions but the more “stable” times of the early 2000s are a different animal. Thus allowing you to make sure you can trade in many different market cycles or phases. That was a complete tangent so i will stop and not jack your thread. But complete control of your simulation environment is a crucial element for me.
I actually tried out Forex Tester, but the thing is, I’m actually testing out a system that has a specific set of indicators and I don’t know how to import those to Forex Tester.
I guess I’ll just have to stick to pressing the F12 key method for testing in MT4.
For the sake of making things as realistic as possible I’d highly recommend buying some good software.