Short practical guidance on the use of trader built MT4 strategy tester.

INTRODUCTION

Much has been written instructions and guidelines on the use of the strategy tester
MetaTrader 4. There is a good built-in Help, hotkeys F1. But as practice shows, not all questions are considered and over time becomes less of them. Some of them belong to the purely technical type "Why do I have the test results are not at all like other Vasey although we test the same adviser with the same parameters?"

Questions like, "Why in the optimization adviser gave a profit, and on the demo and the real world merges?" Refer to a completely different category. This article will address common mistakes and practical recommendations traders caused by these two (or similar ones) issues. There are also many lower-level questions like: "Why on M1 timeframe quality modeling is limited to 25%?" Or "Why can not I get quality modeling more than 90%?" The answers to these questions can be found in the article.

The first part describes three methods of preparing high-quality historical database.
The second part examines the typical error optimization with a concrete example.
The third part provides practical advice and sets out a simplified procedure
proper optimization are criteria that can adequately assess the results of the optimization / testing.
The fourth part deals with the practical example of the optimization of our vehicle.
Finally sets out the basic requirements in the optimization / testing are our criteria for the applicability of the vehicle to the real world.

We hope that this article will help traders better understand the process of optimizing and testing in MT4, avoid common mistakes, and as a consequence, increase the effectiveness of trade with advisers.

It is designed for the average level of technical training.