How to test MT4 expert advisors with the quality of 99% - easily, legally, for free

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Hello, dear colleagues, forex traders!

As you know, for Forex advisors testing (especially scalpers, sensitive indicator robots), it has now become a sign of good taste to conduct tests with a quality of 99%, that is, using tick data from third-party sources. We already wrote about the excellent (but, unfortunately, paid) program Tick Data Suite and its analog Tickstory. However, due to the capabilities of the new Metatrader4 builds and changes in the Tickstory licensing policy, we recommend a simpler and more efficient way of testing with a quality of 99%. All you need is a terminal and hands.

What happened to Tickstory Lite?

The trouble that nobody expected came: Tickstory Lite became a commercial product. At https://tickstory.com/download-tickstory/ we see the following:

That is, you can use the program for free only up to 765th MT4 build, while the numbers of modern builds have long exceeded a thousand.

What to do? Search for older versions of MetaTrader4 on the Internet? Use the services of hackers and other masters of the dark arts? No, this is no longer necessary: the new MetaTrader 4 builds and a couple of free programs can completely replace Tickstory Lite.

What is good and bad at new MT4 builds?


Bad news: in MT4, there is still no tick history of quotations.

Good news: we can download third-party tick quotes, convert them to the appropriate format and upload to the tester.

Why did not we do this before? Because, in earlier builds the MetaTrader tester did not allow to simply take and use “non-native” files: he tried to rewrite them by the downloaded online brokerage quotes and emulated the new tick values, overwriting the file with the test quotes, which forced to patch the MT4 files, which was done by the Tick Data Suite and Tickstory Lite. But in new builds, metatrader stopped spoiling files, which allows us to save on paid programs.

What will be needed: our gentleman’s set

  1. Metatrader4 itself, which you need to download from your broker’s website and install.
  2. A program for downloading ticks from Dukascopy. StrategyQuant Tick Data Downloader, available at:
    http://www.strategyquant.com/tickdownloader/
    (Hint: look for the green button, then enter the name and mail address, where they will send a link to download the program). Personally, I recommend using the 32-bit version as the most stable in operation.
  3. CSV2FXT script https://eareview.net/download/csv2fxt_v0.50.zip

Beginning of work

  1. Install Metatrader4 as usual, register a demo account, and put the CSV2FXT script files in the MQL4 directory in the Metatrader4 program. Close and restart Metatrader4.
  2. Install the StrategyQuant Tick Data Downloader.

Setting general parameters

The StrategyQuant Tick Data Downloader program is free, and it has some items in the settings, which for our purposes are either not needed or redundant, so we will only focus on the necessary actions.

First, we will configure the general parameters of the program.

Press the Configure button and check the box next to Automatic export to CSV. Also, in the Change timezone menu item, you can set the time zone for the quotations you receive. The current version of the program creates two output CSV files of quotations: one without time shift, and the other one with the time shift that we indicated in the settings. It is most convenient to use a file without a time shift.

Downloading tick quotes

Set pairs and date ranges to download.

For example, the EURUSD pair is taken and the term is 1 month.

Next, select the path to save the CSV files.


By default, the program offers to save to the folder where the StrategyQuant Tick Data Downloader is installed, the tickdata subdirectory. You can specify a different folder. Then save the selection: Save.

The download starts with the Start Download button.

In the end, we got 2 files:


We see two files, EURUSD_tick.csv and EURUSD_tick_UTC+0_00.csv.

Lifehack: For our purposes, the first of these two files is enough, so if the file size is very large, then after downloading the first one, you can stop the program and delete the second file.

Convert ticks to Metatrader4 format

  1. We transfer the quotes file to the .csv format (in our example this is the EURUSD_tick.csv file) to the MQL4/Files terminal folder. For convenience, rename it to EURUSD.csv;
  2. Turn on the MT4 terminal;
  3. Open the chart of the pair we need (EURUSD), put the timeframe we need;
  4. Run the CVS2FXT script.

For our purposes, not all the parameters of the script need to be changed, however, we will consider the entire list.

  • CVS2FXT version - the version of the script;
  • CVS filename - the name of the file with tick quotes, if it coincides with the name of the currency pair (for example, EURUSD.cvs and the EURUSD pair in the terminal), then you may not fill this field, otherwise, specify;
  • Create HST - create HST files, of course true (files where the metatrader stores the history of quotations have the .hst extension, and the built-in tester from them makes files with the history of quotations in a different format, with the .fxt extension);
  • All spreads and commissions in pips – sum of all spreads and commissions in pips, for our purposes you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Spread - for our purposes, you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Date range info - information about the date range;
  • Start date/End Date - date of the beginning and end of the conversion of ticks. If you do not specify these values, the script simply converts everything that exists in the specified file;
  • Use real (variable spread) - using a real spread. In our case, we will define the spread directly in the tester, so put false;
  • Spread padding is a fixed additional broker’s markup, for our purposes you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Minimum spread - the minimum value of the spread in the converted file, for our purposes you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Commission info - information about commissions;
  • Commission in pips - for our purposes you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Commission in account currency - commission in account currency, for our purposes you can leave the value “zero”;
  • Leverage - shoulder, you can leave automatic;
  • FXT GMT and DST info - information about shift settings for GMT and summer time (DST = daylight saving time);
  • FXT GMT offset - time offset from GMT in FXT files;
  • FXT DST setting - selection of summertime in FXT files depending on the broker;
  • CSV GMT and DST info - information about shift settings from GMT and summer time in the .csv format file;
  • CSV GMT offset - the time offset from GMT in the quotes file of the .csv format, for our purposes you can leave the value “autodetect”;
  • CSV DST setting - summer time settings in the .csv format file; for our purposes, you can leave the value “autodetect”;
  • Remove duplicate ticks - remove duplicate tick values;
  • Create M1 FXT, Create M5 FXT, Create M15 FXT, Create H1 FXT, Create H1 FXT, Create H1 FXT, Create D1 FXT, Create W1 FXT, Create MN FXT - these options allow you to create multiple FXT files for different timeframes in one time. By default, the script creates FXT files only for the timeframe on which it is running;
  • Time shift info - using the time shift;
  • Time shift - use the time shift, yes/no. If true, all dates in the FXT tester file are overwritten 28 years ago. If some adviser has a blocking of his work in the tester for certain dates (for concealing the bad results), comparing the tests with the usual time and with quotations shifted by 28 years ago will give different results and help to identify “cheaters”;
  • Price multiplication factor - multiplier, all quotations after conversion are multiplied by this value. For normal forex quotes, the value should be 1.0, however, there are brokers that for this type of CFD price, indices, metals, etc. instead of normal quotations (for example, 1.23456), multiply the values by some multiplier (for example, 1234.56), so it is convenient to use multiplication of values in the .csv file by a certain number.

Conclusion

After setting the parameters, click OK. The script will ask for our consent to transfer and overwrite the files (with which we agree) and offers to restart the MT4 terminal. Restart the terminal - and now you can test the expert advisers! If you not familiar with MT4 tester, read this post.

Attention! Do not forget to select the right EA, pair, time frame and spread in the tester!

Take care, Michael

ForexTraderPortal.com

P.S. If something goes wrong…

It may be an issue with the script CSV2FXT on startup and pops up the message “Can not open input file GBPJPY.csv …

This means that the script does not see the quotations file you uploaded. Please note that the correct location of the file is MQL4/Files directory (you need to go through the MT4 terminal, click on File> Open Data Folder to see if there is a file).

Another reason - a badly recorded file name, eg., if you generated file GBPUSD_tick.csv, exactly the same name must be in the settings:

If everything goes well, you will see quotes delivery to the terminal percent:

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