Yesterday one of the traders taking my Forex Robots Course asked me an interesting question: “What’s the difference between Optimization and Curve-Fitting in Forex Backtesting?” Let’s talk about that for a minute…
The article
The question was prompted by an article from onestepremoved.com. It’s a good read, but I’ll give you a break down here to save time.
Basically, the author defines optimization as the process of finding “the best collection of entry signals that in conjunction with the exit signals maximize some objective”. Curve fitting, on the other hand, is referred to as merely finding “a curve that best fits the historical data”.
What doesn’t sit right with me, is that this definition severely undermines any Optimization we do in MetaTrader 4. The article is effectively saying that if you use the MT4 strategy tester, you are not putting enough thought into your entry/exit signals, and hence you are curve-fitting your results. Your system will fail.
MT4 Common Error Are you experiencing the MT4 common error in your trading platform? In this short article I will show you how to fix the “common error” that you may be seeing in your MetaTrader 4 trading terminal. What happened? On 17 October 2014 MetaQuotes released Build 735 of MetaTrader 4, which apparently only […]
In this short tutorial we will summarize everything we learned in the previous section called “Putting it all together”. Looking back you will see how we first came up with an idea, then put that idea into a diagram, then programmed the algorithmic trading system step-by-step, making sure that everything works correctly every time, and […]
Welcome back to our Series of Tutorials! Today we are going to compare how our algorithmic trading system performs before and after adding the Moving Average entry filter. This will allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of this filter. Then we will learn how to optimise the filter for a given set of parameters. Do […]
In this tutorial we will add the moving average indicator as an additional market entry condition to our trading strategy. To do this we will use the iMA() function which is built-in into MQL4. Functions such as iMA, iMACD, iRSI and many others allow you to quickly access the Moving Average, MACD, RSI and other indicators from within your Algorithmic Trading Systems. In this beginners course we will only touch on the iMA() briefly, but that should be enough for what we need in our trading system.
Enrol in the full course here: https://www.forexboat.com/learn-mql4
Today we will learn the very basics of backtesting. We will practice using the Metatrader Strategy Tester and see how we can optimize the expert advisor which we have created. We will find two different sets of parameters, which will both be profitable in the backtest. Please note: do not use this expert advisor for trading […]
In this video we will complete our Forex Robot by adding market exit conditions to it. Specifically, we want to close any existing orders before we the Algorithmic Trading System opens new ones. This way we will make sure that there is only one open order at any given time, therefore limiting our currency risk and exposure.
Feel free to leave me some feedback if you have any questions on the code or if you just like my tutorials!
Source code below
Enrol in the full course here: https://www.forexboat.com/learn-mql4
Today we will continue coding the Simple System expert advisor. In this tutorial we will program the core of our Algorithmic Trading System.
We will use the OrderSend() function to send Buy and Sell orders to the market based on which way the price has moved. To check the price we will be using the Open[] array, which Metaeditor provides for us.
Source code under the video
Enrol in the full course here: https://www.forexboat.com/learn-mql4
The preparation stage is complete and today we will finally start programming our FOREX Robot in MQL4. We will start by completing the blue section of the trading strategy design template, which is responsible for time of day controls. If you recall we want our expert advisor to send buy and sell orders only once at a certain hour of every day. That is exactly what we will implement today.
Enrol in the full course here: https://www.forexboat.com/learn-mql4
Interested in Automated Trading System design? Well this tutorial is exactly what you need to improve your skills!
Today we will turn our Forex trading idea into a holistic trading strategy. Moreover, we will put it all into a fancy looking diagram to help our programming down the track, and I will show you how this is done too!
Enrol in the full course here: https://www.forexboat.com/learn-mql4
