CONTENTS Overview Terms and Definitions License Software upgrade GUI Structure Simulaton - tab Zoom In - tab History - tab Real Time - tab Data - tab Settings - tab Help - tab License - tab Strategy - tab Tester - tab Other tabs Trade Analysis Settings Test Data Offline (Back testing on historical data) Online (Streaming real time prices) Manual Trading Simulation Data Speed Control Order operations Timeshift (pause/resume on live data feed) Orders history and log Settings Automated Strategy Testing Strategy editor Interfaces between a strategy and the Tester Tester dashboard Orders history and log Semi-Automated Testing Pivot Points Analyzer Tick Data Recorder Signals OVERVIEW Smart Forex Tester is a suite of advanced tools for developing and testing your Forex trading strategy. It can be used for manual trading simulation, both on real live prices and offline. Trading strategy can be automated with standard C++ language and tested on the variety of market data. Graphics facilitate tick by tick analysis of trades and market action. You can perform test data preparation for back testing yourself by recording live quotes and editing then. The tool provides the interfaces for market signals generation. All functions are using the same GUI and same simulation module. Any tool for testing of Forex strategis requires two principal elements. First, you need to have a source of market data, and the way to execute trading commands. A strategy can be executed either manually, or automatically. The data feed can be either real-time price quotes from a live data feed or historical prices stored in a file. This gives us 4 possible combinations. add Picture Terms and Definitions simulation - modelling the Forex market for testing a strategy. Can use the market data from file or live streaming. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 1/13
offline - a synonym for back testing. Using historical data for simulation. online - a synonym for forward testing. Using real-time data from a live stream for simulation. time shift - a technology that enables to pause and resume live data feed for online simulation. License Note: this help describes FULL functionality of each product. Please check your license to define what is included in it. A license needs to be installed. Enter your email address and your license code, and click the Validate button. If the credentials entered are correct, the license status will change to installed. You can uninstall the license by using Deactivate license button. This function is useful if you need to transfer the license to another computer. Software Upgrade To install a newer version of the Smart Forex Tester, you should follow the same procedure as you did for the fresh installation. Upgrades don't require any license manipulations, as long as you don't uninstall the software prior to upgrading. In which case, you will need to install the license again. GUI structure The GUI has tabs, each of them is dedicated to a certain function or product. Simulation is the main tab, which is a combination of the dashboard and control panel. Here you can monitor market data charts and indicators, set data feed rate, pause/resume simulation and place/close orders. Zoom In tab is designed to facilitate analysis of your trades and market action. You can see the price quotes and orders with an absolute accuracy, tick by tick. History tab shows full trading logs. In addition, internal logs of the Tester are available, which can be used for debugging your automated trading strategy. Real Time tab has all needed to control the live data feed for online simulation. You can start and stop the simulation, select the currency pair, and also monitor the quality of your Internet connection. Data tab is designed to work with offline back testing data. You can download the ticks from file, select the test date/time and start offline simulation. Settings tab provides controls to change all global parameters, e.g. graphics mode or account currency. You can also check for software updates. Help tab contains this guide. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 2/13
License tab is used to install, validate and upgrade your software license. Strategy tab is an editor for C++ trading strategy. It also provides the controls for the inbuilt C++ compiler. Tester tab provides controls for testing automated trading strategies. Can be used both on historical data and in real-time (forward testing). Other Tabs: (to be added in later releases) Piviot Point Analyzer tab provides the tool to study market extremes detection in real time using our proprietory algorithm. Tick Data Recorder tab provides the tool to store locally live market data from different real time feeds. TRADE ANALYSIS To investigate your trades and to study the price action, the Smart Forex Tester provides a zooming functionality which is activated by left click on the middle or bottom graphs on the Simulation tab. Alternatively, you can select a rectangular area by clicking and holding the left mouse button on the left border and releasing it on the right border. The Tester will show the selected area on the Zoom In tab as a tick graph, where you can see all the details, with a 100% accuracy. On this tab, you can continue zooming in as described above - by selecting an area with a mouse. To zoom out, use the left click. Double left click will return you to the Simulation tab immediately. You can also move the graph as a whole by clicking and holding the right button. The vertical line helps you find the price quotes and trades. All the information is shown in the status line in the bottom. For example, on the graph above, we put the vertical line on the sell trade symbol. We see the trade happened at the tick # 672826, with bid 1.0879 and ask 1.08795. Other number in square brackets show the ticks interval that is currently plotted. You can also see that this test was run for offline data for November 2015. SETTINGS On this tab, you can adjust the graphics parameters, select account currency and lot size, check for software updates, etc. For the tick (zoom) graph, you can select the size of the data window. Default value is 10 s, max is 120 s. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 3/13
For the tick graph, you can select the size of the data window. The range is 120-7200 s. For the averaged quote graph, you can set the data window size and averaging interval (M1/M5/M15/M30/H1). You can also select plotting mode: line or candlesticks. If the Scale to orders flag is selected, the vertical scale is adjusted to make visible all the orders placed during currently running simulation. With Plotting accuracy parameter you can adjust the scale of all price graphs. The parameter value sets how many digits after decimal point are phused. The default value is 4. Indicator graph in the bottom can plot RSI, ATR or MACD. On the middle hraph, you can plot moving averages - (SMA and EMA); the number of periods used in their calculation can be set in the Awer. window control. For all graphs, you can activate the offset view. In this mode, the graphs will be plotted with a gap between the latest value and the right margin. You might find viewing graphs in this mode more comfortable. For the Trading server, in the version 1.x you can set min and max values of the response delay. The Simulator generates a random delay value for each request. This setting is only available for Offline (Back testing) mode. Stoplevel (measured in pips, default 5) is a minimum allowed distance to market when placing Stop-loss or Take profit orders. The same value is used for both. Order fill will fail if you try to place the order closer to the market than the minimum distance. Pip values and profit are always calculated in Account currency, which is USD by default. Another choices depend on the simulation mode. During offline simulation, you can only choose between the currencies of the current pair. In real-time, 6 currencies are available, but not all the combinations of the account currency and the pair are possible. Default Lot size is Mini (10,000). It can be changed for every simulation run. The deal size is measured in selected lots. Maximum deal size is 100 lots. Version check By default, the Simulator checks for the software updates on every start-up. You can disable this by unckecking the box. If a new Simulator version is available, you will be shown the dialog window. Clicking OK will open the download page with the update in your browser. During the check for software updates, the Simulator will also fetch the latest information (e.g. just released features or fixes), and display it in the scrollable info window. Run online simulation at start-up. By default, this flag is enabled. In this case, the live data feed is turned on immediately when the Simulator is started. After the fresh install, the simulation will use the default currency pair (EUR/USD), otherwise the Simulator will automatically recall the pair that was used in the previous run. TEST DATA The Smart Forex Tester supports both Back testing and Forward testing on streaming real-time prices. Back testing (offline mode) In this mode, you test on the historical market data that you can select on the Data tab. The Smart Forex Tester only uses the tick-by-tick data which is loaded as a.csv file. Free high quality tick-by-tick data can be downloaded from www.truefx.com. There you can get the historical data for 15 main currency pairs since 2009. The price data is available in monthly files. You need to download them to your computer and unzip before using. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 4/13
To start an offline simulation, navigate to the Data tab, click on the Open data file button, and choose an unzipped quotes file. Alternatively, in the File menu, select Open. The Tester will first scan the data to check its integrity, and then load it. NOTE: tick data files are usually large, so their loading might take a while. You can monitor the progress of loading in the status bar in the bottom. In the case of any loading errors they will be logged on the History tab. When the file loading is complete, the calendar will show the first available date highlighted in blue, and the rest of the data as light colored. You can select the desired simulation start date by clicking on it in the calendar. You can also select the start time. The options available include standard opening times of the trading sessions - Asian, European and North American, as well as manual time select. NOTE: By default, the simulation will start from the first tick in the data file. NOTE: Your data file can exceed one month. In this case, the calendar will only show the beginning of the file. Now, click on Start simulation button. The Simulator will switch to the Simulation tab and the historical data feed will be started. Forward testing (requires Internet connection) This mode enables you to practice in the real-time, when the Forex market is open. The Smart Forex Tester uses streaming price quotes for 10 main currency pairs, provided by www.truefx.com. NOTE: when you start a new real-time simulation, the Tester will download latest price data. So the price graphs will be plotted with a small delay. This is normal. In the settings, you can configure a new live simulation to be started automatically on start-up. To change the currency pair, you need to stop the running simulation first - by pressing the Stop - button. Then navigate to the Real Time tab, where select a new currency pair from the Currency pair drop-down list. Now you can start a new simulation by clicking on Start file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 5/13
Online Simulation button. NOTE: you can also start and stop a simulation by pressing CTRL+L or using Live Feed option in the File menu. Real-time simulation requires good Internet connection. The Smart Forex Tester constantly monitors the quality of your connection by measuring the round trip time (RTT). Bothe long term RTT values and last real-time graph for the last minute are available. RTT is the time needed to request and receive one tick from the trading server over the Internet. The smaller the RTT value, the better you can simulate the real market. We recommend you to pay attention to the RTT graph and make sure the average value doesn't exceed 500 ms. If you lose your Internet connection in real-time mode, the simulation will be paused. Connection loss will be logged on the History tab and the warning (DATA LOSS) will be shown on the market charts. As soon as the Internet connection is restored, the simulation will resume automatically, but there will be gaps in the graphs. On the candlestick graph the gaps may be indicated by thin gray vertical lines. Connection restoration will also be logged. NOTE: The real-time simulation result can only be reliable with uninterrupted Internet connection. While the Smart Forex Tester does its best in handling the connectivity issues, this is only done to improve user experience. TRADING SIMULATOR (Manual strategy testing) Is used to gain trading practice and test your trading stratedy on real market by placing all orders manually. Can be used in both offline mode as well as on live price data when the market is open. The Simulator is much more efficient than a conventional demo account due to its ability to do Time Shifting. Time Shift - manipulation with used tick data feed rate in offline mode. Can be also applied on live data feed to pause and record real-time market data. Once the data feed is started, the focus automatically switches to the Simulation tab. Here you can adjust data feed speed and perform trading operations using the controls located on the left-hand side. In the top left corner of the control area you can see the start date/time of the running simulation, followed by the current time. The number in brackets is the tick count. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 6/13
On this tab, you can also monitor price charts and indicators. 2 upper graphs show ticks in real-time. The left graph is a zoom view, with min window size of 10 s. The right graph has bigger display window size - from 2 min to 2 hrs. The middle graph displays averaged quotes, starting from M1. The light horisontal bar shows the value range of the tick (zoom) graph. Dashed vertical line marks the change of the date. Dashed horizontal line shows current market price. In addition, you can plot SMA and EMA indicators. Right-click on the graph to get to the context menu to select an indicator to view, as well as adjust visible data window size and data averaging interval. NOTE: Left click on the middle graph will open a close-up tick view on the Zoom In tab. Double click there will bring you back to the main view. The bottom graph is reserved for indicators (in the Simulator 1.4, supported indicators are RSI, ATR and MACD). file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 7/13
Right-click on the bottom will show a context menu to select an indicator to view, as well as adjust visible data window size and data averaging interval. During Offline simulation, you can put the current simulation on hold with Pause button. To unhold the simulation, press Resume button. During Live simulation, you can put the current simulation on hold with Record button. To unhold the simulation, press Play button. To end the Simulation, use Stop button. NOTE: When you start a new simulation, the previous trading history will be deleted. Data Feed options It is possible to vary the speed of the data feed during Offline simulation and when Timeshift is used. By default, the data feed is always started in Normal mode. It means that ticks are sourced at exactly the same intervals as they appeared in the market. In 2X (4X) mode, ticks are sourced twice (4 times) faster compared to the Normal mode. These modes are useful to save time when trading in quet markets. E.g. in Asian sessions the time intervals between ticks can exceed 1 min. Max mode doesn't limit the time intervals between ticks anyhow, so the feed speed only depends on your hardware. This option is used mainly for debugging and demonstrations. In 1/2X (1/4X) mode, ticks are sourced twice (4 times) slower compared to the Normal mode. These modes can be used in fast-paced markets, e.g. to practice news trading. Working with orders The Simulator 1.4 only supports one active market order, with linked Stop-loss and Take profit orders. Pending orders are not yet supported. You can place a market order in one click using BUY and SELL buttons. Active market order is marked on the graph with a black triange pointing up for a buy order and down for a sell order. The order is also marked with a horizontal dashed line drawn at the price the order was opened. The line is colored green if the position is profitable and red in the opposite case. The profit (loss) value is written on the line. You can place the Take profit and Stop-loss orders simultaneously with the market order. For that, before you press the order button, check the Take Profit or/and Stop Loss boxes located just above the Buy button. Set the desired price using arrow buttons or by entering it manually. The solid horizontal line is drawn at the price level entered in the control. Stop orders can also be placed at any time after the market order using Stop Limit and Stop Loss buttons. Clicking a button opens a dialog window where you can select the desired price level using arrow buttons or by entering it manually and press OK button. The solid horizontal line on the graph helps you adjust the price. When the price is set, press OK button to place the order. Same buttons can be used to move active stop orders. With the X Stop Limit and X Stop Loss buttons you can cancel stops. NOTE: Every time you try to place or move a stop order, the Simulator first checks its distance to the market. If the price you entered is too file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 8/13
close to the current market price, the order fill error will be returned by the trading server. The minimum distance to the market is configured by the Stoplevel parameter on the Settings tab. If you use a dialog box to add or move the stops for the active market order, the Simulator automatically calculates the minimum distance to the currently effective market price and doesn t accept incorrect values. For your convenience, the arrow buttons are also colored. Red button indicates that the price is too close and order placing command won t be accepted. NOTE: It is still possible for a stop order to be declined after the command was accepted - if the price changed unfavorably before the server receives the command. All your trading activity is presented on History tab. Timeshift Timeshift makes it possible to pause/resume a Real-time simulation. If your practice is interrupted (e.g. by an important phone call), you can put the running live simulation on hold. As long as your Internet connection stays active, the Simulator will continue receiving the market data. So later, you can resume your practice any time. The recorded data can be also used offline. Timeshift both saves your time and helps you use your time very efficiently. To pause the simulation in the Real-time mode, press the RECORD button. The Simulator will start storing streaming prices internally. The tick graph will display the recording symbol and also show its duration. NOTE: Order operations are not possible during recording. To resume the simulation, press PLAY button. The simulation will continue from the tick following the last one shown before the pause. The playback symbol will be displayed, along with the current record duration (i.e. the delay from the current time). All the recorded ticks will be rendered with this delay. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 9/13
NOTE: When the playback is active, you can activate recording again at any time. You can fast forward the recorded data using 2X and 4X buttons. In this case, the delay will be decreasing, and eventually the Simulator will go back to the Real-time mode. Fast forwarding is very helpful when the market was slow moving during the recorded time. You can save your time and catch up without losing anything significant. To switch to the Real-time mode immediately, press the LIVE button or select Max speed. Alternatively, you can slow the playback of the recorded data using 1/2X and 1/4X buttons. In this case, the delay will be increasing. This mode may be helpful during fast market action, e.g. around major news releases. Order operations are possible during both fast and slow playback. NOTE: If you want to use the recorded data offline, leave the RECORD button pressed before switching off the network (e.g. before enabling the Airplane mode). file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 10/13
HISTORY This tab has the table showing all the orders for the current simulation. For each order, its size, open/close time/price and profit are shown. For the active order, SL and TP values are visible as well. The profit is shown both in pips and account currency. Below the order list, the simulation log is shown. Most log records are related to order operations, e.g. 08.22 14:48:40 INF BID: 1.31377 ASK: 1.31405 SELL ORDER OPENED AT 1.31377 TICKET: 2 LOTS: 5 SERVER DELAY: 258 MS In the Back testing mode, the log timestamps correspond to that of the historical data used. Also the server response delay is logged. NOTE: The log and the trading history are both rewritten when you start a new simulation. Settings STRATEGY TESTER (Automated trading) It is an advanced tool for automating your trading strategy by programming all the decisions and trading operations in powerful C++ language. Smart Forex Tester provides a strategy editor and an inbuilt C++ compiler. Compared to manual testing, automated strategies can be tested much faster and with much better accuracy. STRATEGY The Smart Forex Tester provides powerful development environment to program your trading strategy with full support of standard C++ language. You have a number of interfaces to the Tester engine to get relevant market data and also send trading commands to the market simulator. On this tab, you can load a strategy from a *.cpp file, or type/paste it in the edit window. Check strategy button starts inbulilt C++ compiler. Compiler messages are shown in the small window in the bottom. Execute flag, if enabled, results in loading the strategy to the Tester after successful compilation, to be executed immediately. Reload on the fly flag defines whether to update the strategy, recompiled during running test. NOTE: the Tester doesn't save the source file automatically before compilation - but it does that on exit. Interfaces between the strategy and the Tester To program the logic of your strategy, you can use the standard C++ language. But to get the market data from the Strategy Tester and work with orders, you need to use the internal interfaces. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 11/13
In the version 1.0 the following interfaces are supported. extern double Ask, Bid; extern int Bars; extern const char *Symb; extern void LogPrint(const char *fmt,...); enum { M1 = 60, M5 = 300, M15 = 900, M30 = 1800, H1 = 3600 H4 = 14400 D1 = 86400}; enum { OP_BUY = 1, OP_SELL = 2 }; extern int PlaceOrder(int Operation, int Lots, double Price, double slip, double sl, double tp); extern int CloseOrder(int ticket); extern int Ticket; extern int OrderType(); extern double OrderPrice(); extern int OrderLots(); extern double RSI(int period, int Idx); extern double StopLevel(); extern int GetTickCnt(); extern void RefreshRates(); Tester dashboard This is a control panel and the dashboard for testing automated trading strategies defined by a C++ code. You can start and pause the test and monitor the test results. NOTE: While the Tester is mainly needed for intensive back testing on offline data, it can be activated on live data feed as well. Online testing mode can also be useful for live Forex signals generation. To run the test, you need to selet data source and trading strategy. Offline data control is used in the backtesting mode: you can see tick data file name, currency pair and the time interval for testing. The data selection procedure is described in Data chapter. Strategy control shows the file name of the selected strategy. The procedure of strategy compilation is described in Strategy chapter. Test Progress control lets you monitor percentage of test completion, time elapsed in the historical file and test run time, and the test speed as the ratio of the two. Forward testing mode is indicated by Live sign and you can see the current time. Profit graph shows the results of each trade (blue line) and cumulative profit (black line) as a function of time. The time of the last closed trade is marked by arrow in the bottom of the graph. Short summary of the closed trades is given in the table. Full version is avalable on History tab. Test report is self-explanatory. NOTE: The test report only shows already closed trades. Logging file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 12/13
This tab has the table showing all the orders for the current simulation. For each order, its size, open/close time/price and profit are shown. For the active order, SL and TP values are visible as well. The profit is shown both in pips and account currency. Below the order list, the simulation log is shown. Most log records are related to order operations, e.g. 08.22 14:48:40 INF BID: 1.31377 ASK: 1.31405 SELL ORDER OPENED AT 1.31377 TICKET: 2 LOTS: 5 SERVER DELAY: 258 MS In the Back testing mode, the log timestamps correspond to that of the historical data used. Also the server response delay is logged. NOTE: The log and the trading history are both rewritten when you start a new simulation. SEMI-AUTOMATED TESTING This is the most efficient testing mode when you are developing your automated trading strategy. The benefit of this approach is convenience and time savings. You don't have to have all elements in place to start testing. You can always activate an order manually and let the algorithm to continue, or vice versa. For a ready strategy, the same mode can be used in trading. It is analogus to how modern aircraft are controlled - by an autopilot in standard predictable situations but overridden by a human pilot when you need decision making. You can allow an automated strategy to operate stable markets, and take breaks or just relax from staring at the monitor. You can always regain controls once things get worse. You can also place a trade yourself but let the algorithm follow it up and fix the profit or cut the losses. PIVOT POINT ANALYZER TICK DATA RECORDER SIGNALS In real-time mode, the Stratery Tester can be configured to generate a sound signal on every trade executed by the automated strategy. Same can be done in Pivot Point Analyzer. This makes the Smart Forex Tester a convenient tool to assist the real trading. file:///d:/help/smart%20forex%20tester%201.0%20users%20guide.html 13/13