BytePip
Know if an EA works before you risk real money
The EA Reality Check: 12 tests to run before you trust an Expert Advisor with a live account. The same checks I run on my own strategies, with a one-page score sheet.
Twelve tests in four steps
None of them needs special software: the MetaTrader Strategy Tester, its report and a little patience are enough.
Read the numbers
- Every number needs its conditions
- Check the quality of the data
- Count the trades
- Look at it year by year
Try to break it
- Data it had never seen
- Nudge the settings
- Double the costs
- Profit factor and drawdown, not win rate
Check the risk
- Is the risk per trade really what it says?
- Is there a real stop loss on the server?
Before real money
- Does it survive another broker?
- Compare live with the backtest
- Score sheet: go, wait or walk away
Most EAs don't fail live. They failed in the backtest, and nobody looked.
An EA that looks perfect in a screenshot and loses money in a real account is not always a scam. Usually the test was too kind: the wrong data, the wrong costs, one lucky year, or settings tuned until the past looked beautiful.
- If you are buying an EA: what to look for in a listing, and what to test yourself with the free demo
- If you already run EAs: how to check that the risk per trade is the risk you set
- If you build your own: the tests that catch overfitting before your money does
Look at it year by year
A ten-year total can hide a strategy that worked in one year and has been losing since. One of my own candidates looked solid over nine years until I split it by year: almost all of its profit came from a single year. It never went live.
Red flag: more than half of the profit from one year, or recent years flat or negative hidden inside a big total.
Hi, I'm BytePip
I'm an algorithmic trader and MQL5 developer. I build trading tools and multi-strategy Expert Advisors and sell them on the MQL5 Market, and I throw away most of the strategies I build. This checklist is the reason. It is a method to judge any EA, mine included.
Questions
Is the guide really free?
Yes. Leave your email and you get the PDF straight away, on the next page and by email. No card, no trial.
Is it for MT4 or MT5?
Both. The tests work on any Expert Advisor. A few of the steps mention where to find things in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester, and MT4 has the same information in its report.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Most tests only need the Strategy Tester and its report. Two of them have an extra note for people who write their own EAs.
Will it tell me which EA to buy?
No. It gives you a method to judge any EA, including mine. It is educational material, not financial advice.
What emails will I get?
The guide, and then occasional emails about testing EAs, new tools, guides and the community I'm preparing. No daily spam. Unsubscribe at any time.