Backtesting EAs in MT4 with 99% Quality (MetaTrader 4 & 5)

When developing and evaluating EAs for MT4 (expert advisors), it is useful––if not required–to backtest strategies. Fortunately, MetaTrader has a backtesting utility built-in, but it’s not very useful with its default settings.

You will notice that MetaTrader reports somewhat low test modeling quality if you simply plug in a strategy and test against the data you have available. Here we will show you how to backtest expert advisors on MT4 with 99.9% modeling quality.

In order to maintain high-quality EA test results, it is necessary to import tick data into MT4 from a verified, external source. We recommend tickdata from Dukascopy, who have archived tick-by-tick market data  going back almost 10 years. Tickstory is a program that will automatically import tick data into MT4, which you can then use to backtest EAs.

Tickstory is FREE software, extremely convenient for traders developing and backtesting expert advisors with MT4 and MT5. You can download it from here: http://www.tickstory.com

Backtesting can be done on your local PC running MT4, or on the MT4 platform installed on your forex VPS. To generate the files necessary to import into MT4 and begin backtesting, all you need to do is choose the currency symbols and timeframe you would like to download in Tickstory. The application will do the rest. You can also produce custom formatted CSVs to import tick data into NinjaTrader, StrategyQuant, or another platform for testing.

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