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Download our Free Forex Software:
Unlike any Demo, works on weekends when markets are closed.
100% accurate market modeling (up to 1 ms). Pause/resume. Free tick data. Live prices for 10 pairs.
Saves in real time tick-by-tick market data from Metatrader Client Terminal.
Forex Data Manager is a convenient tool to prepare tick-by-tick test data.
Data Manager can download large historical market data files. It also checks data integrity.
Then, parts of the whole data saved as separate files.
Forex Strategy Testing Software overview
Background: Essentially all Forex testing is so called “back testing”. This means the software simulates running a Forex trading strategy against historical market data.
The most complicated part of any software is supporting some way of describing and running a trading strategy. In addition, it must have means to input market data into it and output the test results.
The most widely used software for Forex Strategy Testing is probably MetaTrader™ Strategy Tester. Not only is it free, but it is also part of a Forex Trading System that is extremely popular among retail clients. This tool uses a simplified C-like programming language environment to develop and run strategies.
There are also plenty of specialized profeccional forex tools, like FXone or Deltrix – just te o name a few. A comprehensive review of available Forex strategy testing software is done by Ernest P. Chan in his book “Algorithmic Trading: Winning Strategies and Their Rationale” (chapter 1). The author also advises which tool is the best depending on your programming skills and trading experience.
If you are proficient in programming, you can even develop your own tool. And you don’t have to start from scratch. Such popular software tools like MATLAB or even Microsoft Excel provide most of required functionality “out-of-the-box”.
E.g. in MS Excel, Visual Basic environment is enough to formalize and run the trading strategy, market data can be easily stored in worksheets, and inbuilt graphics is adequate for decent result visualization.
You may ask – why would anyone need to develop testing software herself? Even having the skills, why waste time? OK, the professional tools might not be affordable, but aren’t free tools enough?
Good question. We started our testing with free Metatrader Strategy Tester. It is a convenient and user-friendly tool. However, we soon found that it has number of limitations. So we had to stop using it and spend time for our own development.
Our Legacy Software
Looked like this:
The core module was a Windows GUI application, but it could also can be run in batch mode in both Windows and Linux. A dedicated graphics tool was used for test result visualization.
Market Data Store used MySQL. Quote Writer was able of data acquisition for multiple currency pairs for up to 20 quotes/s.
One of the drivers for developing proprietary software was the need for flexibility in making changes in trading strategies. We describe trading strategies as XML based state machines. With this approach, strategy changes are done with significantly less coding.
The first version of the software was intended for our own use.
Now the Smart Forex Tester is released to the public.
have a couple of questions about your website.Do you offer any software to test an outside EA? (=my own EA) If YES, before spending time on your program. Is your program a self standing program?
MEANING that it is not an add-on to Metatrader and that the core of your program is Metatrader’s back testing and optimizing engine. I just stopped testing another program because it was just that.
Looking forward to your reply. Sincerely Isaac Thaler 917-330-2100
Hello Isaac,
Thank you for your feedback!
The whole point to start developing our own Smart Forex Tester was to avoid the MetaTrader’s backtester.
We have chosen C++ for strategy description. We do provide EA compatibility on source code level, but we are not going to develop a full-fledged EA tester.
While it is fully possible, the main reason not to do that is possible licensing issues: MQL is a proprietary language owned by MetaQuotes. In addition, C++ is free and more powerful than MQL.
In our opinion choosing C++ was a reasonable trade-off if you need a Tester for your own strategies (but not have to test 10’s of EAs in short time).
To run an EA in our Tester, you need to convert a MQL code into C++, which requires some changes in the EA: the C++ language that the Tester supports is very similar to MQL, but these two languages are not the same.
So you first compile the EA in the Tester and fix possible C++ errors. Then you need to make trading functionality work. You can check the currently supported interfaces in the inbuilt help. This might not yet have all you need, but we are working to make the list match the MT as much as possible while preparing the next release 2.0.
We do understand that this approach might present some difficulties as there is some learning curve involved. So we are committed to providing support. You can post your questions or issues as comments on the site http://www.expertadvisortest.com/expert-advisor-tester/. We usually respond within 1-2 business days.
Best regards,
The Forex Strategy Tester team
How far have you got with your testing software – will you be making this available to the public?
Hello Simon,
our software is ready and works as described on this page. However, it is not yet productized to the level that it would be sensible to share. For now, our main interest is to cover our testing. Later on, we might either productize the software or make it and the test data available via web-interface, so that people would be able to test forex strategy online. Timelines depend on the overall level of interest to the topic.
Best Regards,
Forex Strategy Tester Team