How to perform Back Testing?

Hello Sir,

I want to test EA on history data. Please guide me about setup of testing parameters and procedure of performing Back Testing.

Thanks and regards.

David

Open the Strategy Tester in MetaTrader by clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar or by selecting Strategy Tester from the View menu.
Select your Expert Advisor, Symbol, Period and Model, check the Use Date box and select a date range. Select Visual Mode only if you want a visual walkthrough of the backtesting. Leave Optimization unchecked.
Hit the Expert Properties button and enter your settings in the Value column under the Inputs tab. You can also load or save settings using the buttons in the bottom right. The Start, Step and Stop columns are ignored, as are the checkboxes.
Close the Expert Properties dialog and press Start to begin testing. It will take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes depending on your settings. Once testing has finished, open the Report tab on the bottom to see your results.
The Results tab at the bottom of the strategy tester will give you the details on opened and closed orders, including trailing stop, take profit and stop loss. Click the Open Chart button to get a visual representation of your results. When testing your new EA, examine these closely to ensure that your strategy is working as intended.

First of all, we don't recommend the back-testing for Aeron EA. Because Aeron EA works only on 1-minute time frame and on 1-minute time frame backtesting gives only 25% modeling quality, which is too low. So you can't rely on 25% modeling quality back-test result.

However we are explaining the process of back-test, as it may help traders to understand it's [Aeron EA] working.

Backtesting
Before backtesting, it's important to make sure that your history data is complete and accurate.

Open from menu:   Tools > Options > Charts



In the above screen, set "Max bars in history" 99999999999  and  "Max bars in chart"  99999999999
Now hit OK

Open the History Center from the Tools menu or by pressing F2 on your keyboard. Double click the chart pair in the left column that you plan to backtest for. A list of time periods will appear below. Start by double clicking on 1 Minute (M1) to load the history data for that period. The backtester uses M1 data to generate ticks, so it is important that your M1 data is complete.



Click the Download button to download the full history data for that pair and period. You may receive a Download Warning message - hit OK to continue. The history center will commence downloading.

Now from the View menu open Strategy Tester



In the above screen:

• you may chose your EA which you want to back-test
• date range for back-test
• Currency pair and period
• Click on ExpertProperties to set the EA's parameters, like Activation Key, TP, SL, TrailSL, etc......

Now hit the Start button. It may take few seconds or few minutes to complete. After completion you will get the various tabs aside "settings", "journal"on the above screen.