How To: Include Commission Cost During Back Test

General discussion about the Tickstory Lite software package.
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glosbe
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 3:20 pm

How To: Include Commission Cost During Back Test

Post by glosbe »

Many of you may know this but I am guessing there are some out there like me who also are unaware of how to get your back test report results to factor in commission. The steps are outlined below.

Download your data using whatever you like,Tick Story, etc.
Export the Data to MT4 in whatever manner you like, Whatever you choose should download and export it into the FXT format that MT4 needs
Once the FXT has been created, use Tick Story, and go to "Tools > MT4 Data Editor"
Click the "Open FXT" button and browse to your MT4 Data folder, locating the "Tester\History" folder. NOTE: This will be stored in a path such as the following by default "C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Term inal\BB190E062770E27C3E79391AB0D1A117\tester\histo ry"
Select the FXT file for the pair you wish to enter commission for.
Enter the correct commission for a round trip trade. In the image you see my round trip cost for 1 standard lot is listed as "Base Comm = 8". This would equate to an $8.00 trade cost
Enter the correct "Comm Type" with Money = 0, Pips =1, or Percent =2 depending on your brokers commission type.
Enter the correct "Base Comm". If your commission is charged in Money, then use a value of 0, If it is charged in Pips, then use a value of 1 here.
Enter the correct "Comm Lots" value. Commission per lot = 0 or Commission per deal = 1
Click the "Save" button once these changes have been made
You will need to perform these steps for each pair you plan to test, however, the settings should be mostly the same for the major pairs unless you switch brokers. Also note that you will need to reset these values any time you download new data and create a new FXT file. Once they are set, they should stay until that FXT file is overwritten.

How do you tell if it worked? Simple. Run a back test, and take note of the value displayed on the graph. Then hop over to the report tab and you will see your profit number is considerably lower depending on your commission cost.

You can also set a fixed spread (useful in worst case average scenario testing, I set mine at 5 which equates to a 0.5 pip spread). Anyway, hope this helps someone like me from having to do all the digging to figure out exactly how to make sure my back tests were factoring in commission
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seanwilliams
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2015 6:25 am

Re: How To: Include Commission Cost During Back Test

Post by seanwilliams »

Thank you for posting this. I've been trying to hack commision into the code but this is perfect!

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