Automated Software - MT4 Strategy Tester Window

The Forex Strategy Tester in the MT4 platform is the environment used to back test the profitability of an EA which is an Automated Bot and determine the profitability of this Expert Advisor and then Optimize it to a point where it is giving god profits from its trading activities.

NB: Before starting the strategy-tester shown below, you must first attach a trading EA on a chart, by going to the Navigator Window, selecting the Expert Advisor and then right click on it and specify the option 'Attach to Chart', once the Expert Advisor is attached it will appear as shown below, Then Right Click on the Expert Advisor, select properties and then select the option by Checking/Ticking 'Allow Live Trading' and then continue with the strategy tester shown below.

The strategy-tester option can be activated from the view menu and it is the second last menu item on the View Menu, A short Cut is to Press Ctrl+R buttons on your key board.

Strategy-Tester has the following Parameters for setting up before testing and EA and also for optimizing the profitability of this EA.

EA: Parameter for choosing which Expert Advisor you want to test among those installed on your MT4 software.

Symbol: The currency pair for which you want to test the EA on

Model: Whether to execute based on tick technique, open prices or control points

Use Date: Set the date to start the testing & the date to end the testing

Visual Mode: Choose To view the illustration of where this EA opens and closes trade as the testing goes on, there's also a slide bar to increase or decrease the speed for this visual mode.

Period: Chart Time Frame for which to use examples 1 Hour Chart

Optimization: Allow Optimization Settings for your EA

For example to text the above EA on the EUR USD currency for profitability, the settings can be set up as shown above and the strategy tester is the run, by clicking the 'Start Button'.

Following trade results are generated and a trader can select to optimize the Expert Advisor further by changing the EAs settings.

Once the optimization is complete the status bar will show the progress, the above status bar shows the progress that testing is complete.

To view the result click options highlighted above (Optimization Results, Optimization Graph, Journal)

Before running this you must go to the navigator window, double click on this Expert Advisor to attach it to the chart and set the parameters as displayed and illustrated below by ticking the options provided below:

After setting the above setting then you can test your strategy within the strategy tester.

Once you Run You EA the Results will be displayed on the following windows

Strategy Tester Optimization Results

Strategy Tester Optimization Graph

Strategy Tester Balance and Equity Graph

Strategy Tester Profit and Loss Graph

Above is just a brief introduction to the strategies tester automated trading with EA Forex Robots is a wide topic that a trader will take some time & research to learn about but the main environment to test and optimize the EA will be the MT4 Strategy Tester.

Note: You can only implement an Automated EA using data which has been downloaded and saved on your trading platform, therefore for the date settings choose the dates that you have been trading with your MT4 to get a graph representation of how your EA would trade.