Proper backtest info very important!

[Earl]

I opened this thread to stress how important your back test
info is.

Without the right info...you could be going the wrong way..

Make sure you have download it correctly, and update it often.

1) Click on Tools
2) click on Options
3) click on the charts tab
4) change both "max bars in history" and "max bars in chart" to "99999999999"
5) close options window
6)click on tools
7)click on History Center
8)click on EURUSD
9) double click on EURUSD M1
10) click download


hope this helps....:D

[newtrader]

I opened this thread to stress how important your back test
info is.

Without the right info...you could be going the wrong way..

Make sure you have download it correctly, and update it often.

1) Click on Tools
2) click on Options
3) click on the charts tab
4) change both "max bars in history" and "max bars in chart" to "99999999999"
5) close options window
6)click on tools
7)click on History Center
8)click on EURUSD
9) double click on EURUSD M1
10) click download


hope this helps....:D

thanks earl
by the way i'm not able to convert the 1min period to 5 min when i download it fron alpari data base bank , do you know how?
thanks in advance

[mystikdragon7]

by the way i'm not able to convert the 1min period to 5 min when i download it fron alpari data base bank , do you know how?
thanks in advance


I have Alpari as well. You should be able to just double click the 5m and it will change over. 1m will still stay lit up but it will be on the 5m.

[alan]

This thread deserves a sticky....*properly and carefully applies a goodly amount of glue*...done!

Kudos to you Earl...

[bearzie]

ok-i got FAPS a few days ago-going thru the normal hiccups.demmo with IBFX 3G.it took some sells right at the bottom of a V-eehh-oh well wait and see!anyways,the only backtest i can do is 1 or 6 month.when i try to download the EUR/USD pair per Earl's post(thank you for all your work on this forum)it has a conflict error saying the data between IBFX and MTq4 are differnt?and wont download anything.maybe i have to just wait till market opens to connect to IBFX server?.Also with the limited backtesting i have i tried some settings for 1k only and this one seemed ok.only thing is its not long enough and had like a 40%ish modeling? LOTS=0 LRR=1.5 MAXORDERS=2 MAXLOTS=100 STOPTIME=15 AAA=13 BBB=14 TAKEPROFIT=25 S/L=0 T/S=0 rest default using both m5 or m1(both were close) thanks for any help tom

[alan]

40% modeling quality is worthless..try to shoot for 90% if possible.

It should still download the history data even if it gives you that warning. Just say yes to it and it should start to dl the data from the MetaQuotes server.

[echaz]

hey guys.

i've done all steps which earl has posted in the opening post but i still get only a modelling quality of 30% .. what is wrong?

[capricorn1]

Guys it depends a lot on which broker you use.

If you backtest with IBFX you cannot download historical data and you wont be able to get a result for more than about the last month of data

Also if you backtest with Alpari it only support 100K standard lots. As a result FAPS is much more likely to blow up on Alpari when everyone else is showing a stable return.

As far as I understand Earl uses FXDD with mini 10K lots for his back testing.

[LBowSoupKitchen]

I am having the hardest time with backtesting. I did what you told me too do earl. and i only get about 2 day or so worth of data. what am i doing wrong.

[lorddave]

Alrighty I have fixed the IBFX history issue!

You cannot download history info for IBFX mini accounts (Due to the "m" that is suffixed to the history file). The simple fix is to create a new IBFX demo account with an account size of about 10K, This will be a Standard Demo account instead of a Mini Demo. You can then go into history center and download all the M1 data back to 1999!

Happy Backtesting!

[mystikdragon7]

Alrighty I have fixed the IBFX history issue!

You cannot download history info for IBFX mini accounts (Due to the "m" that is suffixed to the history file). The simple fix is to create a new IBFX demo account with an account size of about 10K, This will be a Standard Demo account instead of a Mini Demo. You can then go into history center and download all the M1 data back to 1999!

Happy Backtesting!


GREAT!! Thanks for figuring that out Dave.

[enchant3d]

Alrighty I have fixed the IBFX history issue!

You cannot download history info for IBFX mini accounts (Due to the "m" that is suffixed to the history file). The simple fix is to create a new IBFX demo account with an account size of about 10K, This will be a Standard Demo account instead of a Mini Demo. You can then go into history center and download all the M1 data back to 1999!

Happy Backtesting!

I tried it but it says, "no new data"

What to do?:confused:

[Almandine]

One more info about backtesting: I tried to run the long term EURUSD 1min fapturbo EA backtest on my VPS from 01/01/2008. After a while I was not able to connect to the VPS and had to restart it from the outside control panel. The cause was that the log data became very large, almost 10 GB, and the VPS simply run out of free space (which is 10 GB). I did not have such problems with 15min backtests though.

[robert]

I opened this thread to stress how important your back test
info is.

Without the right info...you could be going the wrong way..

Make sure you have download it correctly, and update it often.

1) Click on Tools
2) click on Options
3) click on the charts tab
4) change both "max bars in history" and "max bars in chart" to "99999999999"
5) close options window
6)click on tools
7)click on History Center
8)click on EURUSD
9) double click on EURUSD M1
10) click download


hope this helps....:D


correct further i do backtesting offline
got my minute tickdate from ratedata.gaincapital.com
lot of work to download all, but little tools like httpget does wonders...

[LBowSoupKitchen]

[QUOTE=alan;2851]40% modeling quality is worthless..try to shoot for 90% if possible.

What dose the Modeling Quality Tell Us? I can't get any thing over 25%. any ideas would help


Thanks
Dustin

[alan]

[QUOTE=alan;2851]40% modeling quality is worthless..try to shoot for 90% if possible.

What dose the Modeling Quality Tell Us? I can't get any thing over 25%. any ideas would help


Thanks
Dustin

It reflects how accurately the backtest has "mimicked" real trading conditions.

Make sure you download history data...Tools --> History Center --> select pair - click download - close MT4 - open it up again - enjoy...have a beer...walk the dog..etc....

[stuve]

Please help me out..

After doing exactly as this thred, i got a BIG problem. my CPU is on 100%?? i tried to restart server.. but when I open Metatrader i get 100%CPU on terminal.exe
CPU Usage are going from 3% 20% with peaks of 40% to 100% within 5 sec. then down to 2% again, and up to 100%..

I get no errormessage in expert tab or journal.
Anyone know what can be the problem here?

[alan]

This is not a problem. It is normal for MT4 to make heavy use fo the CPU when running backtests or optimizations.

[stuve]

Alan:
yes, but iam not running any backtests at the moment..

I try to reinstall mt4

[alan]

My bad..I did not read the preceeding posts....yeah if MT4 is taking up 100% cpu usage then the installation got corrupted somehow..it happens once in a while (happend to me a while back with a NorthFinance demo install)

The solution is to completely uninstall it and reinstall.

[stuve]

Yes, Now it back to normal again!! puuh!

[alan]

Excellent...happy trading!

[T$$]

Hi Earl(or anybody else who knows)
I am trying to do some backtesting and I keep getting the following error message:
"TestGenerator: no history data 'EURUSD1'"

I have looked on the internet and through the posts and help centers for a solution.
Haven't found it yet so I am posting here.
If anybody has some wisdom for me I appreciate it.

T$

[alan]

Have a look at this post I made a while back:

http://alansforexblog.com/2008/04/16/new-method-to-achieve-90-modeling-quality-in-mt4s-strategy-tester/

Basically it boils down to you needing to download history data for the eur/usd.

[dreamy77]

I tried to backtest today but I cant get above 25% modeling quality. The strategy isnt even using the LRR function correctly. Anyone know how to get the backtest to be more accurate? (I believe i have the data..)

[T$$]

Hi Earl -
I am having major trouble trying to backtest. I keep getting "no data" message in the journal. I am using FXDD's platform in my attempt to backtest.
Do you happen to know what I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for your reply!
T$

[soldierboy]

I opened this thread to stress how important your back test
info is.

Without the right info...you could be going the wrong way..

Make sure you have download it correctly, and update it often.

1) Click on Tools
2) click on Options
3) click on the charts tab
4) change both "max bars in history" and "max bars in chart" to "99999999999"
5) close options window
6)click on tools
7)click on History Center
8)click on EURUSD
9) double click on EURUSD M1
10) click download


hope this helps....:D

Hi mate.

First post here.

I've been using FapTurbo for a couple of weeks, my broker has banned the use of the scalping strategy but not the long term one.

Anyway I've decided to run my own backtest of the scalping strategy.

I've downloaded MT4 platform from http://www.metaquotes.net/downloads

I removed all the old data files .hst then downloaded the 1M Data from alpari imported the data and then converted the data to 15M Time Frame.

I've then run the back test and i've discovered that the results are not as good as I would of expected. The test was done from the period 3Jan2005 to 23Jan2009

I'm a bit suspicious of backtesting, because it is very sensitive to the data you have. When comparing backtest to live results the trades taken do not always match.

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/9559/47319630fb7.jpg


Expected Payoff is 1.71

A 16% Return in the Bactested Period which is a 5 Year Period which equates to 3.2% a year. Not that impressive.

Seems that some serious optimization/curve fitting has been done which has cuased the equity curve to really jump in the last part of the graph otherwise it is relatively flat.

I disabled MM in this test and used a fixed lot size of 0.1

Note there are some drawdown periods on the chart. If using leverage in those periods then I would suggest an account would of been destroyed.

Overall the equity curve is positive in the tested period which is a plus. However using a high leverage amount could cause concern if going through a significant drawdown period.

Here is the full report

http://www.sendspace.com/file/k18ufi

[dynamo]

Alan:
yes, but iam not running any backtests at the moment..

I try to reinstall mt4

Hi Stuve

The problem you have is because after you run the backtests you need to turn the chart settings back to normal. If you leave the settings at 999999999 (or whatever MT4 has set as your maximum), the program will be reading and writing the data at the same time and so gets stuck in a program loop until it runs out of memory and overloads the processor.

If you bear with it and patiently change the settings back to a lower number of bars in the charts (it may take a while as you have to wait for your pc to catch up with your clicks) then shut down and restart MT4, it should go back to the usual speed.

I have had this before on Vista, and now my MT4 is running back at 20k memory, and my CPU is back to 14%

[Ken Long]

999999999 history might be imperitive for long term testing on the 1M bars, but it eats ram!! Likewise none of the programs need this much data to run. My main demo account has over 40 windows open. I keep the bars in history and bars in charts at 5000 each, just so it can run 24/5 while I use the computer for other things. My laptop only has 1g of ram and it cant handle this much data without overloading. I do all my backtesting on the weekends or when the programs are turned off, and reset the bar counts and clean my registry and defragment before restarting for the weeks operations. I find that backtesting clogs my registry with unnecessary and fragmented files, and that cleaning regularly helps keep it running smoothly.

[mystikdragon7]

999999999 history might be imperitive for long term testing on the 1M bars, but it eats ram!! Likewise none of the programs need this much data to run. My main demo account has over 40 windows open. I keep the bars in history and bars in charts at 5000 each, just so it can run 24/5 while I use the computer for other things. My laptop only has 1g of ram and it cant handle this much data without overloading. I do all my backtesting on the weekends or when the programs are turned off, and reset the bar counts and clean my registry and defragment before restarting for the weeks operations. I find that backtesting clogs my registry with unnecessary and fragmented files, and that cleaning regularly helps keep it running smoothly.

You know I often wondered if there was a memory leak somewhere in the FAPS program. Even on my desktop with 4gigs of memory it will make the computer run like a pig. I usually never do defrags or cleaning, guess I'll try that and see what happens.