FAQ

A Windows program that lets the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) strategy tester backtest with real tick-by-tick prices and real variable spreads. It consists of a client with a window and a tray icon, and an extension that loads together with MT4.

MT4's own "Every tick" mode interpolates prices from 1-minute bars by a fixed rule, and the modelling quality in the report is at most 90%; the spread is one fixed number you enter in the tester. Real ticks are every quote recorded at the time, and the spread is the spread of that time.

No. After installing, MT4's tester Settings page has one more tick box, "Use mttick real ticks". With it ticked, choose the EA, symbol, timeframe and dates and press Start. mttick prepares the data automatically.

It does not change MT4's program or the history files your broker saved. It puts a few small files with mttick in their names into MT4's tester\history folder and, when you agree, changes one Windows setting so that mttick is switched on when MT4 opens. You can see both in mttick, and uninstalling removes the setting.

It does not hide files or processes and does not evade antivirus software; the program will be code-signed. Once the download opens, the download page gives the checksum so you can verify it before installing.

mttick does not place, modify or close orders, does not read trading passwords, and does not connect to your broker. To read the trading conditions it briefly runs an MT4 copy in its own folder: no account of yours, no login, about 15 seconds, deleted afterwards. MT4 may contact outside servers when it starts; mttick does not control that.

Two sources: Dukascopy and Exness (Standard account), 107 symbol series in all: forex, gold and silver, indices, oil, crypto. XAUUSD starts in 2015-08 in both sources; the 51 symbols newly added from Dukascopy start in 2023-10 and are still being filled backwards. The range is whatever Data coverage says.

Recorded as it comes from the source. Only three things are done on ingest: remove repeated quotes whose prices are identical within the same minute, remove quotes whose ask is below the bid, and remove isolated obvious bad points. How many are removed each day is recorded.

That field is a display issue and does not reflect the data quality; we will deal with it in a later version. To confirm real ticks were used, look at two places: the text beside the tick box in the tester says "Prepared …", and this MT4's card in the mttick window says how many real ticks the last backtest used.

Both prices and spreads changed: whether the stop or the take-profit is touched first within a bar, at which price a pending order fills, and the cost of each open and close are now decided by the quotes of the time. For short-term and scalping strategies the difference can be large.

A backtest is still a simulation of historical data. It does not predict the future and does not guarantee the same result in live trading. The source's quotes will not match your broker's exactly, and execution delay and slippage are not simulated by default; switch them on yourself in the backtest settings.

Yes, and it is off by default. In the backtest settings set "Slippage" to Light, Medium or Heavy, and market orders, stops and pending orders get a fill error. It is a model, not your broker's real fills, and it does not simulate requotes, partial fills or rejected orders. Exness does not publish per-trade statistics for market orders, so the market-order figures follow ranges published for other brokers.

Use the one that looks more like your broker. The two sources have different spreads; on gold, for example, Dukascopy's is about 0.4 to 0.8 USD and moves with the price, while the Exness Standard account's is about 0.16 to 0.26 USD and hardly moves. The results differ because the spread and the quotes differ, not because one side is wrong. Details in Choosing a data source.

One. You can move it to another computer yourself. The exact rules are published together with the prices.

Data can no longer be downloaded or prepared, and the tick box in the tester says "Subscription expired". An installed mttick is not deleted, and MT4 keeps working.

Yes. A 14-day trial with the same features as a subscription. Each email address and each computer can start one trial, and it works on one computer. Starting it asks you to verify your email address with a code that is sent to it.

No. MT5's tester is built differently, and there is no date.

Supported now: build 1491, build 1492. When a new build is released we adapt to it as soon as we can. Until then MT4 runs as usual, the tick box in the tester is greyed out with "This MT4 version is not supported yet", and the backtest uses MT4's own data.

Please read your broker's terms and confirm for yourself. We suggest using mttick only in the strategy tester, and trying it first on an account that does not matter.

Yes. In the mttick window choose "Run in parallel…" in an MT4's menu, pick the parameter files, EAs or symbols, and press Start once. Each is an ordinary backtest, and the results go into the run records, where you can compare them side by side. How many run at once depends on your computer.

Planned, optional, off by default, and not available yet. Once it exists: after a backtest, one click gives a plain-language reading; mttick works out the numbers on your computer and the AI only narrates them; what would be sent is shown to you first and goes out only when you press the button. It is not investment advice.