Adding Delay to your EA

a) It is partly correct. There is indeed a 1 minute limitation for data in the back tester. The smallest TF available in Metatrader is the M1. Which means almost all ticks generated in the back tester are interpolated. In other words, they are fake and do not represent the live tick-by-tick action that actually occurred at that time in the real market. However, that being the case, it is a meaningless action to intentionally introduce a delay feature into the EA for back testing. Why? First, it depends on the EA itself and it's strategy. For example, some EA's are based on price action and only open/close orders at the beginning of candles. In this case, the back tester results will be near accurate since an EA can get accurate values at those specific times no problem and it will not be using values during fake ticks. Secondly, let's say a delay would be introduced only for back testing. That still would not solve other issues. For example, the back tester uses a set spread instead of a dynamic spread as is usually the case with most brokers. The back tester doesn't have other issues that can occur during live trading such as trade context being busy and internet connection issues. Also, the back tester doesn't use dynamic stop level distances as some brokers do. For example, during normal market conditions, a TP/SL of 2 pips might be accepted, but during volatile times a TP/SL of 2 pips would be rejected. And there are other things too that the back tester doesn't account for. To summarize, introducing a delay would cause back test results to mismatch live results even more. It would be counterproductive. Not only that, but it would be a complete waste of time. You could just increase the spread in the back tester to a spread higher than typically normal. It would accomplish similar results as would using a delay. The back tester is only meant for general testing purposes. Plain and simple.


b) Explaining this to a coder is simple. Just say add a delay into the EA for back testing. For example, if an order signal is generated at 15:55:42, instead of placing the order right away, have the EA wait until actually 15:57:42 to place the order.


c) It is a waste of time as explained above. It accomplishes nothing other than giving you results that will mismatch live results even more. In my opinion, the only value to the article you are referring to is the amount of coding orders that website probably generated by people reading it and asking for their EA to have a delay added!

Ok great but how about adding a delay to the EA itself - (not for back testing but for live trading) does that in your opinion add anything to improve the EA?

I was actually talking about adding the delay to the EA itself. It would be in it's code, but would only work during back testing. It is still a change to the EA itself though.

The article has some English that is unclear, but I interpreted the article to mean that back testing would have the delay. For example:

"I will explain some factors which will help the backtest results to be comparable to live result"

But my intention is with reference to having the coder add a delay to my EA for live trading (I am having the EA coded not buying from the site). MY EA specifies entry on the change of a basic indicator from buy to sell or from sell to buy and I also intend to trade on an ECN (to avoid some of the delays you point out and on VPS to eliminate as much as is possible issues of internet connectivity). Will those help in your opinion and should I therefore ignore adding a delay for live trading (not for back testing).

To be honest, adding a delay to live trading makes even less sense to me. Especially when indicators are involved. It is already hard enough to make profit with indicators as it is. For example, if you consider most indicators repaint or give lagging signals. I don't understand why someone would want to make it even harder to make profit by getting an order signal from indicators and then waiting even longer to act on it.


About using ECN and VPS, this may help, but there will always be problems of some sort sooner or later. If not from your side, then from your broker's side. The point I was trying to make is that back testing is only for general testing and there will be reasons results will not match. No matter what.


What makes sense to me would be making a back test reflect as close to possible the results that a live trading test would make, but not making live testing results match the results a back test would make. Your delay in live trading seems to be an effort to make live trading results match back test results, which to me doesn't make sense. Unless an EA's strategy is strictly time based, I see no reason why introducing a time delay into an EA for live trading would be worth the effort.

Thank you so very much sir - I guess you have educated me thoroughly on the matter and I take your good advice and let the matter rest once and for all. I am sure there are no options for cutting lags in indicator signals or speeding them up or you would have mentioned. But be that as it may - this forum is most useful and your help very much appreciated - thank you and all the best always.


TM

Sure, no problem. I hope that all made sense. About the indicator lags and speeding them up, it depends on the specific indicator. That is another topic though. I just wanted to explain why introducing a delay, especially in live trading, doesn't make much sense. Unless of course the strategy is based strictly on time. That's just my opinion though. If you do get that done and it was worth it, please come back and let us know.

Quote from: The Magician on July 12, 2018, 03:37:05 PM

Thank you so very much sir - I guess you have educated me thoroughly on the matter and I take your good advice and let the matter rest once and for all. I am sure there are no options for cutting lags in indicator signals or speeding them up or you would have mentioned. But be that as it may - this forum is most useful and your help very much appreciated - thank you and all the best always.


TM

Sure, no problem. I hope that all made sense. About the indicator lags and speeding them up, it depends on the specific indicator. That is another topic though. I just wanted to explain why introducing a delay, especially in live trading, doesn't make much sense. Unless of course the strategy is based strictly on time. That's just my opinion though. If you do get that done and it was worth it, please come back and let us know.

I am back again - still on delays but this time I seek direct insight. I have a manual trading tool - a panel indicator and I depend on this tool to trade - using two specific signals. Now of late and due illness I cannot be there a lot of the time and sometimes I get trade setups outside my waking time etc. So this is my question - since in fact if I were around at such times I will still trade exactly those signals at definite points - if I asked my EA program to simply trigger trades based on my panel indicator signals should I expect any delays in execution and or other asynchronous behaviour between the two programs? And in broad speak why would such an arrangement not trade exactly alike? Both are computer programs and one just triggers the other? Or is it better to more directly code the same behaviour into the EA rather than have the behaviours desired triggered by my panel indicator signals? For instance some MQL recognized indicator such as the Chaos Semaphore appears and if following that appearance a volatility band indicator signals a change in direction I would on those visuals enter spot (and I might add, with little inconvenience on an ECN - so the question is would there be any reasons why an EA doing exactly that on my behalf, should not trade with the same convenience or more?

Will be glad to know this - thank you.

TM

if I asked my EA program to simply trigger trades based on my panel indicator signals should I expect any delays in execution and or other asynchronous behaviour between the two programs?

All the EA would be doing is reading the chart objects displayed from the panel indicator or else importing from that indicator and then placing trades just as you would manually. So no, you should not expect any noticable delays. No more delays than it would take you to physically move your mouse, click a button, and set the order manually. The EA might even do it faster than you can manually.

And in broad speak why would such an arrangement not trade exactly alike? Both are computer programs and one just triggers the other? Or is it better to more directly code the same behaviour into the EA rather than have the behaviours desired triggered by my panel indicator signals?

I would rather see the panel indicator to understand exactly what you are talking about before I answer any of this.

so the question is would there be any reasons why an EA doing exactly that on my behalf, should not trade with the same convenience or more?

I see no reason.

Thank you - to the point as usual. Lets see how things play - I have an interesting idea and we may yet have this coded right here. More for how this EA can show us a complete alternative to technical and fundamental (news) trading than anything else. But until then I remain humbled by the goodness here.

The Magician (-_-)

Sure, no problem. Just a note, please use the preview button prior to posting. I noticed that your posts usually are not displaying correctly. For example, you are including your reply within someone else's quote. Your reply should be on the outside of a quote. Thank you:)

Quote from: The Magician on July 19, 2018, 01:01:21 PM

Thank you - to the point as usual. Lets see how things play - I have an interesting idea and we may yet have this coded right here. More for how this EA can show us a complete alternative to technical and fundamental (news) trading than anything else. But until then I remain humbled by the goodness here.

The Magician (-_-)

Sure, no problem. Just a note, please use the preview button prior to posting. I noticed that your posts usually are not displaying correctly. For example, you are including your reply within someone else's quote. Your reply should be on the outside of a quote. Thank you:)

Hi Admin,

Here (attached) is a picture and I was wondering what I might learn from you about this. As can be seen, this difference in visual and EA signals is greater than the so called 2 bar delay rule (where because the zero bar data might change the EA may not or does not execute the visual signal until the next bar after the zero bar). So is this (the gap in the screenshot) normal? What can a coder do to "correct" this situation. Because clearly even with a very good strategy such entry misnomers would destroy capital faster than human trading. And can we say computer programs are faster more accurate than humans with this sort of gap in entry? BTW I see this in tools other than that in picture and also EABuilder code (which is supposed to be error free) generates exactly such entries causing losses. Thanks in advance.

The Magician (-_-)

PS: The EA code in this case is supposed to match EA entry signal with visual signal exactly.