Backtesting The Forex Metatrader 4 Demo – Pros and Cons

When checking a trading system to see how effective it is, you have to demo and back test it. In essence, you’re looking at strategies that worked in previous years to find out what will work now. By the same coin, whatever didn’t work in the past will likely do the same thing now.

There are pros to using back testing and demo-ing to review a system.

1. Detecting patterns in history. The back-test can reveal patterns that work or don’t work.

2. An investor will be able to know what the primary ratios are, like max draw-down, which will allow them to know what to anticipate when utilizing a certain system.

3. Knowing how a system preforms allows an investor to have more assurance when a draw-down period hits. In other words, an investor will know when sticking to the trading rules will be in his/her best interest and when he/she should forget about using the trading system.

4. Using back-testing investors can replicate the performance statistics of a system, allowing them to accurately estimate the probability and magnitude of any possible trade profits.

Downfalls of Utilizing Demo-ing and Back testing

1. Spreads

Spreads can narrow at the slightest sign of surprising news. You might also find differences in the spreads between night and day. The bid and ask prices of the trades might not be able to truly reflect the spread width.

When back-testing, you won’t be able to tell as well just how these conditions will turn out, making them unreliable.

2. GMT Difference

The server time could change due to summer and winter daylight saving hour in the UK and US. This can cause price and history feeds to vary from the specified chart timing. This can result in mismatched figures from strategies that specify trade hours.

3. Brokers’ Control

There are some brokers who will present nearly ideal trading conditions during a back-test or demo test. However, in live trading ideal conditions are not a reality. The brokers preform this manipulation in order to make more traders want to utilize their services. You can get more information on this topic through online forex forums.

4. Commerce Access Technique

A system that utilizes market order to make entries may find that it is difficult to get the proper price requested when in live trade conditions. In truth, in live trading conditions, the marking price is constantly changing, making it very difficult to make a manual trade at a specific price. Entry prices in back tests or demo tests will vary from that of live conditions.

Conclusion

Identifying the pros and cons of demo-ing and back-testing offers us the opportunity to review and determine which program stands out among the rest. All this information does not indicate that the tried-and-true method of back-testing is obsolete.

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