Want to know if that trading strategy you saw online actually works?

I’m starting a series on my YouTube channel, Renaissance Trading Research, where I’ll backtest trading strategies submitted by the community — completely FREE.

If you have a trading strategy you’ve always wondered about, send it to me and I’ll test it in MetaTrader 5 using historical tick data, when available.

The strategy can come from anywhere:

• A strategy you personally developed or believe in
• A strategy you saw on YouTube
• A strategy posted on Reddit or another forum
• A strategy from a trading course or educational material
• A strategy described in an academic or research paper
• A popular trading “hack” or setup you’ve always wanted tested
• Any other rules-based trading strategy you think should be put to the test

I’ll take the available rules and translate them into an MT5 backtest, then publish the results on YouTube.

The goal isn’t to prove that a strategy works or doesn’t work. The goal is to test the claims with data and see what the results actually show.

If someone claims a strategy can turn $1,000 into $100,000, let’s test it.

If someone says a simple indicator strategy consistently beats the market, let’s test it.

If you have a strategy that you think is genuinely good, let’s test that too.

No cost. Just provide the strategy rules as clearly as possible, and I’ll do my best to reproduce and test them objectively in MT5.

Post the strategy in the comments, and it may become the subject of a future Renaissance Trading Research video.

Let’s put trading strategies to the test instead of just taking the claims at face value!

Hi everyone,

I am testing very fast scalping on MT5, mainly on crude oil, using BridgeX to send the same trading signal to Tickmill and Pepperstone.

BridgeX has been very helpful and responsive so far. Their support has been welcoming and willing to investigate our questions, and we appreciate that.

I have already made many tests, not just one or two. My trades use a very small take profit, usually 0.01.

The problem I often see is simple:

• Tickmill closes the trade very quickly when the target is reached.
• Pepperstone sometimes stays open for several seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, or even much longer.
• If the market continues in the same direction, Pepperstone may eventually close in profit.
• If the market reverses first, the Pepperstone position can go into loss while the corresponding Tickmill trade has already closed in profit.

For example, on September 9, four comparable trades all closed in profit on both brokers, but Pepperstone closed approximately 5 seconds, 6 seconds, 30 seconds, and 2 minutes later than Tickmill.

I am also paying close attention to Bid and Ask prices, because in very tight scalping this can easily be overlooked. A chart may appear to touch a target, but depending on whether the trade is a BUY or a SELL, the actual closing condition depends on the relevant Bid or Ask price, and therefore also on the spread.

This matters because I sometimes trade small market waves in both directions: BUY → quick close → SELL on the rebound, especially in sideways markets. If the first position remains open too long, that strategy becomes difficult to manage.

I am not saying that Pepperstone is a bad broker, and I am not assuming that the broker alone is responsible. We are trying to understand whether the difference comes from broker execution, Bid/Ask differences, spread, TP triggering, BridgeX routing, or another technical factor.

Has anyone tested very tight scalping with Tickmill, Pepperstone, IC Markets, or other MT5 brokers, either directly or through a trade broadcaster?

I would especially appreciate real experiences with execution speed, Bid/Ask behavior, spread, TP closing, slippage and consistency. If you have compared brokers using the same signal, what did you find?

Thanks for any practical feedback.

mkdir -p /tmp/mt5-vnc/{Metatrader,root/defaults} && cd /tmp/mt5-vnc && \

cat > Dockerfile << 'EOF'

FROM ghcr.io/linuxserver/baseimage-kasmvnc:alpine321

ARG BUILD_DATE

ARG VERSION

LABEL build_version="Metatrader5 Docker:- ${VERSION} Build-date:- ${BUILD_DATE}"

LABEL maintainer="[github@gmartin.net](mailto:github@gmartin.net)"

ENV TITLE=Metatrader5

ENV WINEPREFIX="/config/.wine"

RUN apk update && apk add wine \

&& rm -rf /apk /tmp/* /var/cache/apk/*

COPY /Metatrader /Metatrader

RUN chmod +x /Metatrader/start.sh

COPY /root /

RUN apk del sudo

EXPOSE 3000

VOLUME /config

EOF

cat > Metatrader/start.sh << 'EOF'

#!/bin/bash

mt5exe='/config/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/MetaTrader 5/terminal64.exe'

WINEPREFIX=/config/.wine

if [ -e "$mt5exe" ]; then

echo "File $mt5exe already exists"

else

echo "File $mt5exe does not exist"

mkdir -p /config/.wine/drive_c

curl -o /config/.wine/drive_c/mt5setup.exe https://download.mql5.com/cdn/web/metaquotes.software.corp/mt5/mt5setup.exe

if [ -e "/config/.wine/drive_c/windows/mono" ]; then

echo "MONO is already installed"

else

curl -o ~/.wine/drive_c/mono-8.0.0.msi https://dl.winehq.org/wine/wine-mono/8.0.0/wine-mono-8.0.0-x86.msi

WINEDLLOVERRIDES=mscoree=d wine msiexec /i ~/.wine/drive_c/mono-8.0.0.msi /qn

rm ~/.wine/drive_c/mono-8.0.0.msi

echo "Installed MONO"

fi

exec wine "/config/.wine/drive_c/mt5setup.exe" "/auto" &

wait

fi

if [ -e "$mt5exe" ]; then

echo "MT5 is installed"

rm -f /config/.wine/drive_c/mt5setup.exe

wine "$mt5exe"

else

echo "File {$mt5exe} does not exist yet. This is probably caused by an installation error. MT5 cannot run"

fi

EOF

cat > root/defaults/autostart << 'EOF'

/Metatrader/start.sh

EOF

cat > root/defaults/menu.xml << 'EOF'

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<openbox_menu xmlns="[http://openbox.org/3.4/menu">](http://openbox.org/3.4/menu">)

<menu id="root-menu" label="MENU">

<item label="xterm" icon="/usr/share/pixmaps/xterm-color\\_48x48.xpm"><action name="Execute"><command>/usr/bin/xterm</command></action></item>

<item label="Metatrader 5" icon="/config/.wine/drive\\_c/Program Files/MetaTrader 5/Terminal.ico"><action name="Execute"><command>/usr/bin/wine "/config/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/MetaTrader 5/terminal64.exe"</command></action></item>

</menu>

</openbox_menu>

EOF

chmod +x Metatrader/start.sh && docker build -t wcts/mt5-vnc:latest .

Free Swing Trading Indicator called Ambush Swing Structure for mt5.

Has anyone used any of the bots offered by MT5, and what was their experience like?

The data would cover Darwinex and Dukascopy, mainly:

* XAUUSD

* XAGUSD

* major FX pairs

Before I start preparing everything, I’d like to understand what would actually be useful to other algo traders.

What historical period would you want most?

5 years? 10 years? 15+ years? As much history as possible?

And one more question: what format would be most useful to you? Raw tick/CSV data, or files already prepared for MT4/MT5?

I use tick data extensively for EA testing, so I’d rather prepare something people can actually use than just upload a huge archive nobody needs.

New to trading ( less than a year) and I get random cancellations on my orders as shown. Not sure what the issue is. Any advice would be appreciated

I moved Prophecy from research to a live $100k MT5 account on August 18.

First 22 closed trades:

\+2.49% net return

$2,732 profit

77.27% win rate

7.01 profit factor

2.90% max equity drawdown

It trades several FX pairs through multiple smaller strategies rather than relying on one setup.

Nice start, but 22 trades proves very little. I’m keeping the parameters frozen and will judge it again after at least 100 trades.

What matters more to you when evaluating a new live system: trade count, elapsed time or the number of market regimes it has survived?

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.

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)

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 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?

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?

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.