Spread shown in Strategy Tester

[Chorlton]

Hello All,

First time poster on here

For anyone who uses a broker that provides fractional pips I have a question regarding the spread that is shown within Empty4 Strategy tester.

My current Broker is FXCM and they use fractional pips for all their currency pairs.

Using EURUSD as an example, if I open Strategy Tester and click on Symbol Properties, the spread for EURUSD is shown as 38. In reality due to FXCM using fractional pips the true spread is 3.8

Q1 Is there a way to adjust this in Empty4 so that 3.8 is correctly shown as the spread in Strategy Tester when the currency pair is to either 3 or 5 decimal places (ie using fractional pips)?

Q2 If answer to Q1 is No, do I have to make adjustments to my strategy to cater for this? eg. If I wanted to use a 15 pip stop and 45 pip Target exit, I should change the stop figure to 150pips & Target figure to 450pips, etc?

If anyone can offer any advice on this that would be great as I'm concerned that this will affect my strategy results if I get it wrong.


On a seperate note, I have read that it can be beneficial to have two copies of Empty4 installed on your PC. One is constantly connected to your broker and used for live trading, whilst the other can be disconnected (and used as a standalone terminal) in order to keep the spreads constant. Apparently the benefit is that with the disconnected copy the spreads remain constant so each time the strategy is backtested the results should be the same (and not changed as a result of the ever changing spread). This then makes it more reliable when comparing different backtest reports.

Q. Does anyone currently do this and if so, how do you successfully install 2 copies on the same machine without causing any issues or overriding the first copy?

Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

[milanese]

Hello All,

First time poster on here

For anyone who uses a broker that provides fractional pips I have a question regarding the spread that is shown within Empty4 Strategy tester.

My current Broker is FXCM and they use fractional pips for all their currency pairs.

Using EURUSD as an example, if I open Strategy Tester and click on Symbol Properties, the spread for EURUSD is shown as 38. In reality due to FXCM using fractional pips the true spread is 3.8

Q1 Is there a way to adjust this in Empty4 so that 3.8 is correctly shown as the spread in Strategy Tester when the currency pair is to either 3 or 5 decimal places (ie using fractional pips)?

Q2 If answer to Q1 is No, do I have to make adjustments to my strategy to cater for this? eg. If I wanted to use a 15 pip stop and 45 pip Target exit, I should change the stop figure to 150pips & Target figure to 450pips, etc?

If anyone can offer any advice on this that would be great as I'm concerned that this will affect my strategy results if I get it wrong.


On a seperate note, I have read that it can be beneficial to have two copies of Empty4 installed on your PC. One is constantly connected to your broker and used for live trading, whilst the other can be disconnected (and used as a standalone terminal) in order to keep the spreads constant. Apparently the benefit is that with the disconnected copy the spreads remain constant so each time the strategy is backtested the results should be the same (and not changed as a result of the ever changing spread). This then makes it more reliable when comparing different backtest reports.

Q. Does anyone currently do this and if so, how do you successfully install 2 copies on the same machine without causing any issues or overriding the first copy?

Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

Hi Chorlton,

first welcome to our forum!
About your questions, Empty4 shows the spread in points with a 5 digit broker so in your exp. 38 means 3.8 pips, this is giving no problem.
If you will use an EA you should use one that recognizes how much digits your broker is using so you will never have problems..
Running two or more Empty4 makes sense for resource proposes as Empty4 can only use one core of the CPU

PS A note about Empty4 from (SpotDespot):
Empty4 can only use one core - it isn't clever enough to take advantage of multiple cores. As a result you may have a 2 or 4 or more core computer but one core of a 4 core computer may not be as powerful as the single core of a single core computer you had previously - even though all 4 cores combined may be far superior to a single core computer. So running multiple MT4s like one for your CSS and one for other indies and a third for placing trades probably will make the indicators and Empty4 work faster and better than trying to run everything on one Empty4. See page 56 for a discussion on this subject.

If you want a constant spread used in the backtester just set the teser to the spread you want to use..


Cheers

Tommaso

[Chorlton]

Hello All,

First time poster on here

For anyone who uses a broker that provides fractional pips I have a question regarding the spread that is shown within Empty4 Strategy tester.

My current Broker is FXCM and they use fractional pips for all their currency pairs.

Using EURUSD as an example, if I open Strategy Tester and click on Symbol Properties, the spread for EURUSD is shown as 38. In reality due to FXCM using fractional pips the true spread is 3.8

Q1 Is there a way to adjust this in Empty4 so that 3.8 is correctly shown as the spread in Strategy Tester when the currency pair is to either 3 or 5 decimal places (ie using fractional pips)?

Q2 If answer to Q1 is No, do I have to make adjustments to my strategy to cater for this? eg. If I wanted to use a 15 pip stop and 45 pip Target exit, I should change the stop figure to 150pips & Target figure to 450pips, etc?

If anyone can offer any advice on this that would be great as I'm concerned that this will affect my strategy results if I get it wrong.


On a seperate note, I have read that it can be beneficial to have two copies of Empty4 installed on your PC. One is constantly connected to your broker and used for live trading, whilst the other can be disconnected (and used as a standalone terminal) in order to keep the spreads constant. Apparently the benefit is that with the disconnected copy the spreads remain constant so each time the strategy is backtested the results should be the same (and not changed as a result of the ever changing spread). This then makes it more reliable when comparing different backtest reports.

Q. Does anyone currently do this and if so, how do you successfully install 2 copies on the same machine without causing any issues or overriding the first copy?

Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

Hi Chorlton,

first welcome to our forum!
About your questions, Empty4 shows the spread in points with a 5 digit broker so in your exp. 38 means 3.8 pips, this is giving no problem.
If you will use an EA you should use one that recognizes how much digits your broker is using so you will never have problems..
Running two or more Empty4 makes sense for resource proposes as Empty4 can only use one core of the CPU

PS A note about Empty4 from (SpotDespot):
Empty4 can only use one core - it isn't clever enough to take advantage of multiple cores. As a result you may have a 2 or 4 or more core computer but one core of a 4 core computer may not be as powerful as the single core of a single core computer you had previously - even though all 4 cores combined may be far superior to a single core computer. So running multiple MT4s like one for your CSS and one for other indies and a third for placing trades probably will make the indicators and Empty4 work faster and better than trying to run everything on one Empty4. See page 56 for a discussion on this subject.

If you want a constant spread used in the backtester just set the teser to the spread you want to use..


Cheers

Tommaso

Hello Tommaso,

Thank you for the welcome and reply

Do you personally run 2 or more Empty4 and if so, how easy it is to set up? If I install a second copy do I have to install to a different place on my hard drive in order for it to not override the first copy??

Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

[milanese]

Hello Tommaso,

Thank you for the welcome and reply

Do you personally run 2 or more Empty4 and if so, how easy it is to set up? If I install a second copy do I have to install to a different place on my hard drive in order for it to not override the first copy??

Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

I run more than one Empty4 and it is easy to set up, just put them in different directories...

Cheers

Tommaso