olegas Dec 27, 2021 / 95 Views
Any newly developed trading system (TS), no matter how brilliant you think it may be, requires mandatory testing. Only by testing a vehicle can you evaluate its trading potential and understand whether it is profitable or unprofitable. In order to obtain reliable testing results, it requires compliance with certain rules.
Below are the main methods and rules for testing trading systems currently used.
What is a strategy tester for Forex?
A strategy tester in the Forex market is a special program or advisor for the terminal that allows you to open transactions based on historical data and check the result. The process is reminiscent of rewinding a video:
- • You download the chart. • Send an order, set stop loss and take profit if necessary. • Fast forward to the desired moment until the position is closed.
The result is that in a few seconds you opened a full-fledged transaction and checked its result. Having completed 1000 operations in this way, you can understand how profitable the strategy is and whether it is worth using in real conditions.
Online monitoring services
You can also analyze your results in online services for monitoring accounts. At the moment, two free options are available - the popular, but rather leisurely myfxbook and the less popular fxblue. Which one you choose depends on your personal preferences, but the second one provides more different statistics on the account, and the first one has widgets for inserting data from your monitoring to third-party resources on the network.
In addition, various market analysis tools are available on these services, such as the ratio of traders’ positions, correlation of currency pairs and other useful indicators. You can find some interesting tools on this site. A lot of interesting things can also be found on the Oanda website. It will also be useful for many to use charts from the trading view website for analysis. By the way, there is also an article about this service on our website.
Advantages and disadvantages of using a Forex tester
Pros:
- • You cannot peek at the schedule or make concessions to yourself. This often happens during manual backtesting without any software. Unfortunately, people are prone to self-deception. • Fast rewind of the chart. You do not need to wait a week for the deal to close if, for example, you decided to test the strategy on a demo account. Now the latter simply makes no sense. Turn on the Forex tester and start trading. • No need to count or memorize anything. After testing is completed, the system will issue a full report, where you will see: how much was earned, the percentage of profitable trades, the degree of drawdown, etc.
Minuses:
- • Missing important psychological moments. Fast forwarding will get you to the result, but in real life you might not be able to wait. This must be taken into account. • Lack of tick data. At least in MetaTrader 4 they are not stored for a long time, as a result, you will not be able to test scalping on small time frames. However, for M15 and above the error is minimal.
In general, testers have much more advantages. The disadvantages do not play a significant role in comparison with the result that you can get. This approach will truly change the way you think about trading.
Four best strategy testers for Forex
Wide functionality from MetaQuotes Software, as well as free access to the MQL language and libraries, allows you to achieve incredible things from the platform. MetaTrader has both a built-in automatic expert advisor tester and user-developed manual programs.
The last option is the most interesting. There are three free solutions in this category:
- • TSTester 2 is the first tester I came across. I spent many days and hours on it, identifying profitable patterns for trading. I think it is the most convenient. • FX Blue Trading Simulator 3 is a fairly functional tester with a lot of useful features. • SimpleFXTester - a less advanced, but popular solution with opening transactions in a separate window.
Forex Tester 4 should be placed in a special category. This is an external program for testing strategies without a terminal.
Let's pay attention to each of the options.
Remote control programs
TeamViewer
Currently, monitoring the market from a phone or tablet is not particularly difficult: you just need to install a special application or use the web account that almost every broker has. But often this is not very convenient, and in some cases you may need to access your home computer (for example, to urgently turn off a trading robot due to instability in the market). The wonderful TeamViewer program comes to the rescue. It is available in both PC and smartphone versions. We simply install the program on all the desired devices and get something like a network of your work machines with the ability to log into any of the connected devices directly from your smartphone. I will not describe in detail all the functions and capabilities of the program; you can familiarize yourself with them on the website.
TSTester 2
I'll start with the tester, which I still use myself. TSTester is distributed free of charge as an advisor for MetaTrader.
Instructions for first launch
Installation is carried out as standard - just copy the files to the directory of the MQL4 terminal. This must be done in folders with the appropriate names:
- • Experts; • Indicators; • Sets.
You can quickly get to the directory directly through the terminal. In the “File” section you need to select “Open data directory”.
After copying, be sure to restart the terminal, otherwise the tester will not appear in the list of available ones.
In addition, you should download quotes for the asset you need from the archives. This is done through the “Service” section, or you can simply press the F2 key.
Next, select the required timeframes; it is necessary that their icon is colored and not gray. Then click “Download”.
After this, launch the built-in tester in the MetaTrader terminal and select TSTester 2.45 as an advisor. In the properties of the expert you can specify the deposit, and in the settings select the timeframe and testing period. Don't forget to check the box next to "Visualization". It may be hidden by default; to see it you need to stretch the tester window up.
If everything is specified and configured, then click “Start”.
How does the tester work?
The following window will open with a chart and trading panel. All testing operations are carried out through it.
Explanations of rewind control icons:
- • a button with the “Play” symbol starts visualization or pauses it; • the large rewind icon at the very top stops the chart after the candle closes; • a similar, but small symbol under the clock - 00:15, allows you to stop scrolling at a specific time of each day; • lightning icon enables rewind at maximum speed.
Description of buttons for opening trades:
- • OP—pending orders; • SL — stop loss; • TP — take profit; • BE – transfer to breakeven after the price reaches a certain level; • Lot field – allows you to select the transaction volume; • Fixed/Auto - changes the order calculation format in lots or percentages (very convenient for checking risk management); • Buy/Sell – a purchase or sale will open at the current price.
Explanations for the close buttons:
- • ID and arrows - required to select the desired order, which is assigned the corresponding number; • Modify—allows you to change position parameters, for example, move stop loss or take; • Close – closes the deal; • All - allows you to apply changes to open orders, for example, close all transactions or move stops everywhere.
At first glance, all of the above seems complicated, but it is not. It is enough to open a couple of dozen transactions and you will understand how simple this tester is.
How do I open trades in TSTester?
There are several convenient features that I came to after using this program for a long time. Here is a brief step-by-step instruction on how to test strategies as conveniently and quickly as possible.
Step 1. In the top panel, set a pause and make the stop icon active after each candle, then set the visualization speed to maximum.
This is necessary to quickly scroll through the chart by candlesticks by clicking on the lightning bolt icon. 10 mouse clicks - 10 candles have passed, etc. This format is very convenient for me; it allows you to move quite quickly and not miss the moment of closing the deal.
Step 2. Activate the SL and TP buttons. You should have two lines, the red one is the stop loss, the green one is the take profit.
Now, while these buttons are active, you can move the loss or profit fixation directly on the chart for each trade.
Step 3. Click on the Fixed button to start the Auto mode (to update, you need to click once on the chart). This will allow you to open trades as a percentage of your current deposit. After this, you can immediately click on Buy or Sell, and then on the lightning icon.
Now we risk only 1% of our capital in each trade. It is enough to press the lightning several times and monitor how the price will behave until the order is closed.
Positions are highlighted with blue and red lines with arrows. Scripts for visualizing real transactions in the terminal work in a similar way.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- • stop and take are placed and changed directly on the chart; • above the transaction fixation lines the possible loss or profit in dollars is shown; • there are pending orders and transfer to breakeven; • wide functionality for rewinding the chart with stops at the closing of candles or at certain times of the day; • convenient calculation of the lot as a percentage of the deposit.
Minuses:
- • complex and outdated design for a beginner; • interacts poorly with custom indicators.
You'll have to work a little with the tester to understand how and what functions. The result is definitely worth it. After spending a couple of days in this system, I was able to test 500 trades or more during the day, using the method described above.
Programs for storing your notes
If we don’t know why we lose or earn money, then the matter is hopeless: without understanding the reasons for failures, it is impossible to fight them; Without understanding the reasons for successful transactions, it is impossible to repeat the same result in the future. Therefore, the more we train and the more deals we analyze, the more actively we develop.
One of the most common tools for analyzing your trades is the trade journal. Most traders use it primarily to record all completed transactions and track so-called emotional transactions, i.e. transactions that were not made according to the system.
It is also quite common for situations to arise when an interesting thought comes to your mind regarding your trading, which is worth writing down so as not to forget. In this case, some people use paper notepads, others use the tools built into their phones, or even just anything that comes to hand. Then it all gets lost, mixed up, and sometimes it’s almost impossible to find something you need.
Another common situation: you find an interesting article on the Internet and want to make a note. Most often you just have to copy the text from the browser to a file on your computer or make bookmarks. Over time, such a system becomes more and more cluttered, “littered” and it becomes difficult to find something again.
Yes, you can use standard tools. For example, Excel for journaling, and Word or a similar program for notes. But still, many more universal and useful applications have been invented to solve these problems.
Excel and Word
The simplest and also free solution is to use Excel to keep a diary and Word to store notes. You can organize your system from folders on disk and organize your notes according to the system. You can display any graphs, coefficients and other characteristics in your journal in Excel. Everything seems to be good, but there is still a big minus here: Word will not save you somewhere far from the computer when inspiration suddenly descends on you, and in Excel it is quite inconvenient to insert screenshots of completed transactions. Therefore, let's take a look at the programs that are now available as an alternative.
Evernote
This is the most popular program of this type. It has a convenient interface, a version for a smartphone and a plugin for most modern browsers, which allows you to directly save articles from the Internet directly into the program with just one button.
Its main advantage is a quick search for information in a single database, when you can find the information that you entered into this database in a matter of seconds. After registering an account, you can download the version for your computer or use the browser version (it’s more convenient to download and install the program). To structure information on various topics, you can create special notebooks in Evernote, for example, “trade journal”, “trading patterns”, and so on. You can create an unlimited number of notes within each notebook. A note can contain text, pictures, as well as various files (pdf, word, and others). You can assign different labels to each note. These are something like tags, which can then be used to very conveniently search for the information you need. The tag system can, for example, be a great help when keeping a diary, because you can use the name of the system, trading time, trading result as tags, and then use the filter built into the program to display only those transactions - notes that, for example, were opened before lunch according to the trend system and closed at a loss.
In general, Evernote is an excellent tool for identifying your strengths/weaknesses, developing skills and increasing professionalism. However, the free version has serious limitations, such as the inability to sync the program between your smartphone and computer, as well as limited space for storing notes. The optimal tariff, Premium, costs 2,000 rubles per year, which, in principle, is not so much. But don’t rush into purchasing, because later we will look at several more similar programs.
OutWiker
For those who do not want to pay for a useful program, but want to have many different useful functions, the free OutWiker program may be suitable. Such programs are called outliners, personal wiki systems or tree editors. Notes can also have any number of files attached. OutWiker can contain different types of pages, currently four types of pages are supported: wiki-enabled page, plain text, HTML pages, and tree search page. Using plugins, you can add new cool features such as saving Internet pages, creating galleries, tables of contents, full control over the display of pages, building charts and creating graphs of anything, viewing statistics on notes, inserting mathematical formulas, saving page templates and much more. All this undoubtedly makes the program very convenient for keeping a transaction journal. However, there is one drawback - there is no version for a smartphone. On the other hand, if you use the program only as a trader’s diary, the minus is not so significant.
Microsoft OneNote
This program from Microsoft is often installed along with other office utilities such as Word and Excel. A version for mobile phones is also available. In it you will find exactly the same functions as in the Evernote program, only for free and without any restrictions. For those who have been using Evernote for a long time, it will be a little unusual at first, but it’s worth it, because in addition to the main functions of the competing program, you will have the opportunity to make sketches directly in a note, create tables as in Word, import tables from Excel, work with note templates , record audio and video notes, set up integration with Outlook’s “Tasks” and receive, for example, to-do lists or other notifications by email, as well as many other functions. Therefore, for those who are looking for a way to create a personal knowledge base and systematize the storage of various information, I would recommend this particular program.
FX Blue Trading Simulator 3
FX Blue is the next Forex tester and can be downloaded for free. Installation takes place in the MetaTrader terminal through the program (no need to copy anything manually). To get started, you will need to create an account on the official website of the tester. Surprisingly, this process is performed in a non-standard order:
- • As always, indicate your e-mail, login and password. • Next, enter your first name, last name and phone number (an SMS will be sent to it). • In the message you will receive a unique e-mail, to which you need to send a letter with any text. This will activate the account.
Brief instructions for first launch
Step 1. Run the installation file and select the desired terminal. I have a lot of them from different brokers, if you do the same, then be sure to remember where to look for a tester later.
Step 2. Perform similar to the above setup procedure in TSTester. First, download quotes from the archive, then launch the terminal and the built-in advisor tester. This can be done by the magnifying glass icon in the MetaTrader toolbar. In the “Advisor” column, select FX Blue and click “Start”.
The system will ask you to enter the username and password that you specified on the official website of this tester. The account must be confirmed via SMS.
How does the tester work?
The process is quite convenient. In the upper left corner there is a special control panel where transactions are opened. Just click “Buy” or “Sell”, you can also specify a stop and take profit.
You can adjust the chart scrolling speed, pause and end testing in the panel of the built-in expert advisor tester (below).
Stop orders and take profits can be moved directly on the chart, but only using the red or purple icon (the lines themselves do not move).
A very convenient function that is not available in any other tester - closing or opening a transaction when any line is crossed. This can be a horizontal level or a trend line. Just click on it while testing while holding down the Alt key.
The report can be viewed both in the terminal itself and on the official website of the advisor. To do this, just click on the “Analyze” button.
The report from the site looks pretty nice. It has additional fields with trading analytics and everything is visualized in the form of charts or graphs.
Pros and cons of FX Blue
Advantages:
- • there is a quick trade window; • you can change take profit and stop directly on the chart; • possibility of installation in MetaTrader 5; • there is a trailing stop; • closing or opening transactions when horizontal and trend lines cross (a unique function).
Flaws:
- • standard tools for accelerating scrolling in MetaTrader, for example, it will not be possible to set up rewinding until the end of a candle or bar; • stop loss and take profit must always be entered manually, and only then can they be moved on the chart.
Overall, FX Blue is superior to my recommended TSTester in many ways. However, for large-scale testing on a huge number of transactions, it is better to use the latter. In the long term, the solution is to conveniently rewind and change orders immediately on the chart, which, in my opinion, is not implemented well enough by FX Blue.
Programs for maintaining your home computer and VPS
In general, there was already a blog article about VPS care. The process of setting up a VPS server has also already been discussed. Now I want to offer several programs for optimizing the operation of VPS and home PC, which I use myself.
WinUtilities
This is a set of utilities for cleaning and optimizing the Windows system, awarded with more than 20 awards. Moreover, the program is provided by the developers for completely free use. This set of tools allows you to improve your computer's performance, improve its security, and customize and personalize your windows. Registry Cleaner makes your system more stable by cleaning out bad registry entries that accumulate every time you install and uninstall programs. Registry Optimizer rebuilds and defragments your registry, making your entire system run smoother and faster. The program includes powerful tools for cleaning and optimizing hard drives. Disk Cleaner removes unnecessary files from your computer, allowing it to run faster. The memory optimizer ensures that memory is freed in the correct way. The History Cleaner module removes Internet history and other personal files that can be used to track your Internet activities. The Undelete feature allows you to recover files that you accidentally deleted. You can even save files from deleted partitions. More information about the program can be found on the developer's website.
Ultimate Windows Tweaker
This software is a tool for fine-tuning the Windows operating system. The graphical interface of this application combines a huge variety of settings and options, by changing which the user can optimize the operation of his own computer for certain tasks, in accordance with preferences. It must be said that the program is a rather serious tool and allows you to change parameters that can cause system instability. Therefore, users who are going to use this application, of course, must have certain knowledge and experience. Despite the simplicity and ease with which you can change the value of system parameters, the user will be able to make quite significant changes in the operation of the PC. You can download the latest version of the program on the developer’s website.
Sysinternals Suite
This is a set of system utilities from the well-known author of a huge variety of tools for administering and maintaining Windows operating systems. All the tools offered for use are highly reliable, lack malicious code, lack advertising modules, and over the years have proven themselves to be incredibly stable tools for maintaining and managing a computer running in a Windows environment. The list of programs for diagnostics, management of devices and computer applications is constantly updated with new tools, and old versions of tools are replaced with updated versions. Currently, the number of funds is already seven dozen. Most likely, there is no particular need to list the entire composition of this package, but it is worth talking about the capabilities that will allow you to solve a whole range of problems. Firstly, these are programs to improve security, allowing you to control access rights to files and folders, control the autorun of applications launched along with the operating system, tools for working with databases, tools for monitoring running processes in the system, including Windows. services, utilities for obtaining information about both devices and software. The user will be able to control the cache, define its parameters, organize several desktops, several tools for working with hard drives, and manage fragments of files located on the drives. And this is not a complete range of options available to users. You can learn more about the program on this website.
Quick Startup
Quick Startup is a startup manager. When you turn on your computer, some applications, drivers, and services automatically start at the start of each Windows session. The same thing happens with your VPS server if it was forcibly rebooted, for example, for maintenance work. The information that tells Windows to automatically start these programs can be located in several places, ranging from the program group on the Start menu to some of the initialization files that are executed when Windows starts in the system registry. The program allows you to centrally manage all these elements using one interface. When using Startup Manager, you can easily add, remove, edit, disable and enable any startup items to keep your system booting as fast and efficient as possible. Quick Startup displays detailed information about the program in the Details box at the bottom of the window. You can download the program on the authors’ website.
SimpleFXTester
SimpleFXTester is another frequently mentioned tester. Unfortunately, it is much inferior to the two above options in all respects. It may be suitable for some special purposes. For example, when testing strategies with a large number of indicators, where the trading panel interferes and leads to failures.
Installation is similar to TSTester. It is enough to copy the files to the folder with the terminal data directory. Detailed instructions are described above.
The only difference is that testing is managed through an external program that comes bundled with the advisor.
In my opinion, this is not a very convenient system. It will take quite a long time to test strategies through it. It's strange that she is so popular.
Access to VPS from a smartphone
When you work on your PC, logging into your VPS server is not problematic. But what if you are on the road or just far from home, and need to access the VPS urgently? The RD Client smartphone program will save you. It is similar to the TeamViewer program, RD Client gives full access to your server, as if you were accessing it from your home computer.
