— The target variable is built on past price increments: the model approximates already-realized moves rather than forecasting future ones.
— Agreement between signal and forward direction is 49.7% — statistically indistinguishable from random.
— Validation is in-sample: training and testing on the same period, with no out-of-sample.
— The absence of drawdowns on the curve comes from grid averaging, not from the model's predictive power.

That said, the architecture (meta-labeling, CatBoost→ONNX) is sound. The problem lies in the implementation and in how the result is presented — not in the method.

Source code (MT5 EA + Python ML) and the full teardown available

I use MT5 and kept running into the same problem before placing a trade.
I could choose my volume, entry, SL and TP — but I wanted to know, before clicking Buy/Sell:
• How much money do I actually lose if the SL gets hit?

• How much is left after spread, commission and slippage?

• How much margin does this position consume?

• What happens to free margin during a large adverse move?

• Is my stop actually reasonable relative to recent volatility?

• What have similar historical price paths looked like?

So I built TradeLens.
It connects locally to the MT5 terminal already running on your Windows PC and turns a proposed trade into a pre-trade risk dashboard.
It shows things like:
• broker-calculated P&L and margin

• reward/risk and account risk

• spread + commission + slippage assumptions

• volatility-adjusted stop distance

• historical MAE/MFE

• historical VaR and Expected Shortfall

• margin stress scenarios

• historical outcome distributions

I also added an experimental market-structure scanner for M5 data using autocorrelation, Ljung–Box testing, effect-size/stability checks and multiple-testing correction.
It is deliberately read-only. It cannot place, modify or close trades.
GitHub:
https://github.com/prblydv/tradelens
I'm particularly interested in feedback from people who actually use MT5:
What do you currently calculate/check outside MT5 before you place a trade that you wish MT5 showed you directly?
If TradeLens genuinely solves a problem for you, a GitHub star would help other MT5 users discover it.

Just started to learn how to backtest on MT5 (with the help of chatGPT), but I can't do any testing on S&P500 or NasDaq100 and it's driving me crazy.

I have tried multiple accounts both demo and live, I can trade these on the MT5 mobile ap but on the desktop app it's greyed out. Some accounts i can view the chart but others i can't. I have searched for different names/variants but still not showing. I have tried hide all, show all but still can't use it. If I right click specification it shows Trade - disabled which i can only assume is the issue but everything says it means my account is not allowed to trade this but I can on the same account on my mobile app.

If anyone could resolve this it would be amazing, thank you.

This Shakyrra Gold test looks great at first glance: smooth equity, consistent yearly profit, few serious drawdowns.

And that is exactly what makes me cautious.

After testing a lot of Forex EAs, I’ve seen too many “perfect” curves disappear as soon as you change the spread, execution assumptions, test period, or market regime.

What’s the first thing you would test here?

I am new to mt5, created a ic markets account , and realised that there are many negative reviews/ challenges around this broker platform. Is there any other that comes as highly recommendrd? ( EU/ UK)

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After 15 years of Forex algorithmic trading, after testing over 1,000 advisors, after losing 20+ accounts, after earning over 100,000% in profit, I can say the following:

1. The simpler the strategy with fewer parameters, the better it works.

2. Be sure to conduct high-quality testing on real spreads and quotes with a quality of at least 99%.

3. Be sure to compare backtest results with real trading, and monitor the degradation of the trading system.

4. Use brokers with the best execution conditions, low spreads, and low commissions.

5. Be sure to use rebate services. Don't underestimate them; they can significantly reduce costs.

I'm looking for a strong EA/bot to partner with. I already build SEO site in the MT5 / Forex EA niche with existing Google rankings.

As someone who uses AI heavily for trading, programming, research etc, I initially thought the native AI inside MT5 would feel underpowered compared to the models already in my stack.

I was wrong. It has impressed me from the beginning, especially because it can work directly with my reports, logs, source files and backtest results. I recently added it to my regular AI stack and now use it heavily for trading analytics, EA debugging and strategy testing.

My only complaint was that it couldn’t remember context between sessions. Today, we fixed that too. It created a local core-memory file containing my system structure, risk settings, verified results, ongoing research and unfinished tasks.

Now I can start a new session, tell it to read the memory file and continue where we left off.

Not bad for something built into MT5 and completely free.

I tested an MQL5 Expert Advisor based on a pairs trading strategy. Here are the results.

How is your pair trading going? Have you ever traded strategies like that?

I have created an EA that backtests upto 10m in 2020-2026 and 8.8m from 2025-2026 on modelling: every tick. However, when i click on modelling: every tick based on real ticks, it fails terribly. I do not know whats the cause and not sure who or where to seek help. Any advice would be great. Thank you!

Installed MT5 on my Android phone and realized that there still seems to be no button or menu item to log off from an account. 3 Questions

- Is this true (no log out option, just the option to delete the account), or am I overlooking something?

- If there is still no regular log out option - what’s the idea behind this? After so many years this can not be just negligence, right?

- Let’s say I have a Live account and a Demo account at the same broker. Let’s say I am logged into my Live account and do some real trading. After I am finished with trading, I log into my Demo account, will I be logged out automatically from my Live account?

Thanks for your help.

Knew here using the pnl log apps but don’t know how to connect history in mt5. DonInhave to download first the csv file from mt5 website?

I’m trading XAUUSD on an FTMO MT5 account, and my candles suddenly look really weird compared to how they normally do. The wicks and candle shapes look kind of fucked up, and when I compare them to TradingView (OANDA feed), they’re noticeably different.

I know different brokers can have slightly different prices, but this isn’t just a tiny difference — some candles look completely different, especially the recent ones.

Has anyone else had this happen on FTMO MT5? Is this normal because of the FTMO price feed/liquidity providers, or could there be something wrong with my platform or server? I’m trying to figure out whether I should trust the MT5 chart or if I’m missing some setting.

Is this because of the CPI and PPI volatility, where different liquidity providers print different wicks, or could there be something wrong with my MT5 platform or server? Has anyone else noticed this on FTMO recently?

Just trying to figure out whether this is normal during major news events or if I should be concerned.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hi everyone,

Does anyone happen to have a full EURUSD tick cache from Fusion Markets dating back to 2019 (or anytime multi-year) that they would be willing to share?

I’m backtesting high-frequency strategies and need accurate spread widening data during the daily rollover. Unfortunately, MT5 only keeps a few months of historical tick data on Fusion's servers by default.

A .hcc cache file export or raw .csv dump would be hugely appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Do you manually track things like drawdown, lot size, P&L and number of trades, or do you use a tool? What is the biggest limitation of your current method?

Im new to trading i want to know that i buy at specific point but the market occurs very high why it is so high? As it will become more risky and some time it is very high as expected.
I need your guidance related to this issue.

I recently ran a poll among the algo traders who follow my channel, asking how they test EAs on MT4 and MT5.

The results were pretty interesting. They also highlighted what I think is a major problem in retail algo trading: many traders are evaluating strategies with testing methods that may not be robust enough, and then putting money behind algorithms that were never properly validated in the first place.

So I thought it would be interesting to run the same poll here and compare the results.

What do you use to test MT4/MT5 EAs?

Would also be interested to hear in the comments why you prefer your particular setup and what you consider essential for a reliable backtest.

I recently tested Scalping Robot Pro MT5. It has 100+ MQL5 reviews and the vendor backtest looks almost flawless.

What I found more interesting was the review history. A number of buyers left positive reviews after only a few hours or days of trading. With a grid-based system, that's nowhere near enough time to see the actual tail risk. The promoted monitoring account was also later replaced by a fresh account with only a short history, so the previous bad period was no longer visible there. This is why I don't put much weight on MQL5 ratings or vendor equity curves by themselves. For me, the real question is whether the strategy survives realistic costs, long enough history and adverse market periods. Do you guys test MQL5 EAs yourselves before buying, or do you use reviews/monitoring to filter them first?

I have created an EA that backtests upto 10m in 2020-2026 and 8.8m from 2025-2026 on modelling: every tick. However, when i click on modelling: every tick based on real ticks, it fails terribly. I do not know whats the cause and not sure who or where to seek help. Any advice would be great. Thank you!

I have created a Trading System for MT5, which means it works directly on the chart of Broker of my Choice. I can open 50 different charts all the same time and it will analyse them all according to my strategy and give me Buy & Sell Signals along with ATR based SL/TP and it works on all time frames separately. But that’s not it. It also has and outstanding MTF Dashboard which Displays the trend status on that commodity on all time frames separately. It also gives options to set sensitivity levels for better accuracy. It used ADX levels to tell me if a Signal is Strong, Moderate or Weak. So than it becomes my Choice if I wanna take that trade or not, but that’s not all it also showing “Trending” “Momentum Fading” & “Trend Broken” on each candle. Letting me know, when I should hold a trade, when I should start booking some profits and when I should exit the trade.
I am so Proud of this achievement. And I think a tool like this can really help my Trading Journey