Tips and tricks for using MT4i Live |
Tips and tricks for using MT4i Live |
Frequently asked questions:
You can publish statements to MT4i Live from MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, FXCM Trading Station or FXCM Strategy Trader.
MetaTrader 4
You can publish your results to MT4i Live from MT4 in three ways:
MetaTrader 5
Users of MetaTrader 5 can publish their results using our Publisher EA for MT5.
FXCM Trading Station II or Strategy Trader
Users of FXCM's non-MT4 accounts can publish their results using our FXCM Publisher.
FTP settings for MetaTrader 4
You can publish from MetaTrader 4 using FTP. Please note that we very strongly recommend using our EA instead of FTP publication. Our EA is faster, more flexible, and more reliable.
The Journal tab in the MT4 terminal should then show successful publication - a "Publisher: ok" message. If an error message is displayed, make sure that you have entered the correct username and password, and the correct details such as the FTP server and path. If no "Publisher:" messages are displayed, make sure that the account number you have entered for publication matches the account number you are logged into.
The MT4i Live Publisher EA is an alternative to the publication settings which are built in to MT4/5. Our publisher uses much less bandwidth than MT4/5's own publisher, and is much more flexible. For example, it can hide open and pending orders, or put a delay on your statement. It also allows you to analyze your results by the magic-number of orders.
For more information about the Publisher EA for MT4, please click here.
For more information about the Publisher EA for MT5, please click here.
You can display charts for a specific time period in two ways. Firstly, you can click on the Filter button in the top-right of the Stats page to choose the dates you are interested in (plus other filtering options such as symbol and lot size). This filtering affects all the tabs of the Stats page, including all charts.
You can also filter the results in an individual grid on the Stats page, and then display a chart of those results. For example:
After filtering a grid, you can also get information about a particular column by right-clicking over any of the cells in it, and choosing "Column stats". (You can also download the filtered data to Excel, and then graph it there, by using the Download button at the top of the grid.)
Each grid on the Stats page provides a powerful "Column stats" facility. For example, you can find out the average number of winning trades per week by doing the following:
For even more specific results, you can also filter the grids on the Stats page. For example, you can calculate the average number of lots traded only on days when you make a profit:
The risk statistics are a broad indication of the risk and risk/reward profile of the trade results, rather than just their performance.
The risk/reward ratio is an expression of the system's performance in relation to its volatility (standard deviation). It prefers consistent results rather than wild swings. The figure is broadly analogous to an annualised Sharpe ratio, and figures in excess of +1 are notably good.
The risk of ruin is a Cox & Miller projection of the probability of a fall in the account balance based on the trading history, and particularly the standard deviation of results. The method estimates the likelihood of a fall in the balance at any time in the future. (N.B. Some investors question the applicability of Cox & Miller to trading, and prefer just to view the curve as an expression of volatility. It can yield very low estimates if volatility has historically been low.)
The spread of returns shows the number of daily/weekly % changes in the balance falling into each 1% band, e.g. the number of days on which the balance fell by 5%, or by more than 10%. Institutional investors will tend to prefer systems with a tightly clustered spread and few or no outliers. Systems with a wide spread will tend to have lower risk/reward ratios and a higher risk of ruin - because a small number of consecutive bad days/weeks would lead to major losses.
The deepest valley is the largest % fall in the balance from any peak to a subsequent trough. An investor who started trading at the top of the peak (rather than at the starting date of the results) would have seen this fall in their balance.
The loss from outset is the largest % fall which the system has seen relative to its initial deposit. It reflects the worst fall you would have seen relative to your original capital if you invested at the start of the system's results, but not necessarily if you started investing later (the "deepest valley").
The MT4i Live service calculates the historic profit/loss on open orders on both a day-end and hour-end basis. Intra-day figures are important because many forex trading systems are relatively short-term, and can have substantial profits or losses on an hourly basis which do not appear in day-end calculations.
Any calculation of historic floating P/L is approximate because prices are slightly different on each broker, and also on different types of account with the same broker. In addition, each broker has different swap calculations.
The value of an open order obviously depends on the deposit currency of your account. MT4i Live can calculate historic floating P/L for the following deposit currencies: USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CHF, AUD, CAD.
In order to look up historic prices, the order times on your broker's statement have to be converted to GMT. You can tell MT4i Live your broker's timezone by logging in to your account and editing your user details. The system will automatically select the correct timezone if you publish your results using our Publisher EA and you are using one of the following brokers: Activtrades, Alpari UK, Alpari US, CitiFX, Dukascopy, FinFX, Forex.com, FXCM, FXDD, FXOpen, FXPro, FXSolutions, GFT, GoMarkets, IamFX, IBFX, MB Trading, MIG, NordMarkets, Oanda, One Financial, ThinkForex, or Varengold.
You can set up a portfolio by registering for multiple accounts with MT4i Live and then creating a portfolio to combine them. Please note that you can register with the site any number of times from the same email address.
Once you have created your accounts, choose one of them to use for creating portfolios. Log in to that account, and click on the Portfolio button at the top of the results. You give the portfolio an ID and a name, and you can then choose to add other MT4i Live accounts which are registered to the same email address.
Once you have created a portfolio, you can also add another account to it by going to the URL for that account (e.g. http://www.mt4i.com/users/eapickandmix), and clicking on the Portfolio button.
The most common answer is that you need to restart MT4. If your internet connection drops, even briefly, then MT4 is not always good at resuming publication by itself. It often needs to be restarted before publication will continue.
You can check this by looking at the Journal tab in the MT4 terminal. If there are "Publisher:" error messages, then there is a problem such as an incorrect password or configuration for MT4i Live. If there are no "Publisher:" messages at all, then publication has stalled, and MT4 needs to be restarted.
Alternatively, you can try using our publisher EA instead of MT4's own publication settings. Our publisher EA is better at recovering from network problems than MT4's own publication settings.
MT4i Live receives whatever is shown in the Account History tab in the MT4 terminal. If your account history is incomplete in MT4, then your statement and results will be incomplete in MT4i Live.
To publish your full history, right-click over the Account History list in MT4 and choose "All History". Please note that some brokers truncate (i.e. delete) the history on demo accounts. And, when MT4 is restarted, it may not default to showing the full history - you may need to tell it to display the full list each time that you restart it.
By far the most common reason is that you have not configured MT4's publication settings correctly. In particular, make sure that you have entered the correct username, password, FTP server, and FTP path.
If you have checked these details, and you think there is a problem with MT4i Live itself, please contact us.
Alternatively, you can try using our publisher EA instead of MT4's own publication settings. Our publisher uses a different protocol to communicate with MT4i Live (HTTP vs FTP), and is less likely to be affected by issues such as firewall configuration.
You can hide pending and/or open orders from your statement, but you have to upload your results using our publisher EA rather than MT4's built-in publication settings.
You can put a delay on your statement, but you have to upload your results using our publisher EA rather than MT4's built-in publication settings.
The Strategy tab of the Stats page can analyse your trading results based on the "magic number" of orders (MT4/MT5 only), or based on tags which you define to match against each order's comment.
For example, let's say that you follow two trading strategies, and you enter "strategy1" or "strategy2" as the comment when placing an order. Sometimes you are particularly sure or unsure about the prospects for a trade, and you add either "safe" or "risky" to the order comment, e.g. "strategy2 risky".
You can then define strategy tags which automatically update on the Strategy tab based on the orders you publish. For example, you can create a tag which looks for all orders whose comment contains "strategy1", or a tag which looks for all orders containing "risky", or a tag which matches orders containing both "strategy1" and "risky". You simply define as many tags as you like using the Strategy Tags button.
You can draw a quick chart of the results for a single tag by selecting it in the grid and clicking on the Filtered Chart button, or you can use the strategy tag options in the main list of charts on the Charts tab to compare different tags. Please note that a single order can match more than one tag, and the total profitability of each tag on the Strategy tab can therefore be different to the total profitability of the account as a whole.
It is important that strategy tags are based on the order comment which you define when placing a trade. All you have to do is define your strategy tags once; you do not have to manually assign tags to each order after publishing your results. The system also helps you stay disciplined about your trading and results: if you thought a trade was safe when you placed it, you cannot then remove the "safe" tag later if it goes badly, because the order comment is read-only.
You need to be logged in to your MT4i account in order to set up strategy tags, and you need to be publishing your order comments. For example, if you are using our Publisher EA, make sure to turn on the PublishOrderComments parameter.
For an example of strategy tags, see http://www.mt4i.com/users/strategytagexample/stats#strategy
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