How to Use Meta Trader 4 Expert Advisor Strategy Tester Lesson PDF

The MT4 XAUUSD Strategy Tester in the MetaTrader 4 platform is the environment used to backtest the profitability of an MT4 Expert Advisor which is an Automated Bot & determine profitability of this EA automated strategy and then Optimize this Expert Advisor to a point where it's giving good profits from its automated trading activities.

Note: Before beginning MT4 XAUUSD Strategy Tester shown below, you must first attach a xauusd Expert-Advisor on a MetaTrader 4 chart, by going to the Navigator Window, choosing the EA and then right click on it and specify the option "Attach to Chart", once the EA is attached to the MetaTrader 4 chart it will appear as displayed below, Then Right-Click on the Expert-Advisor, select properties settings and then select the option by Checking/Ticking "Allow Live Trading" and then continue with the MetaTrader 4 strategy tester shown below.

The MT4 strategies tester option can be activated from the view menu & it's the second last menu item on View Menu, A short-cut is to Press Ctrl+R button keys on your key board.

The Meta Trader 4 Strategy Tester contains the following Expert-Advisor Parameter Settings for set up prior to testing-out an EA automated system & also for optimizing the profitability of this EA.

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

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

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

Use Date: Set the date to begin the testing and date to end the testing of the Expert-Advisor

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

Period: Chart Timeframe for which to use examples 1 H Chart

Optimization: Allow Optimization Setting for your Expert-Advisor Automated Robot

For example to test the above EA on the chart for profitability, the settings can be setup as highligthed and shown above & the MetaTrader platform strategy tester is then run, by taping the "Start Button".

Following trade results are generated and an automated trader can choose to optimize the EA further by changing the Expert Advisors settings.

Once the optimization of the Expert-Advisor is complete the status bar will show progress, the above status bar highlights the progress that the Expert Advisor testing is complete.

To view result click the options high-lighted above (Optimization Result, Optimization Graph, Journal)

Before running this MetaTrader 4 Expert Advisor Strategy Tester for Expert Advisor testing you must navigate to navigator window panel, double-click on this EA to attach it to the chart and set the parameters as illustrated and shown below by ticking the options provided below:

After setting the above settings then you can test your automated strategy within the MetaTrader 4 strategy tester.

Once you Run your Expert Advisor the Results will be illustrated on following window

MetaTrader 4 Expert Advisor Strategies Tester Optimization Results

MT4 Expert Advisor Strategies Tester Optimization Graph

MetaTrader 4 EA Strategy Tester Balance and Equity Graph

MetaTrader 4 Expert Advisor Strategy Tester Tutorial Guide

The above is just a brief introduction to MetaTrader 4 strategy-tester - automated trading with EA 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 Expert-Advisor automated robot will be the Meta Trader 4 Expert Advisor Strategy Tester.

Note: You can only implement an Automated Expert-Advisor using data which has been downloaded & saved on your Meta Trader 4 platform, therefore for the date settings choose the dates that you have been trading with your MetaTrader 4 to get a graph representation of how your automated Expert Advisor would trade.