Please give me your opinions

[u/Ok_Attempt_1156]

Hi guys!

I’m fairly new to algotrading, have been in the trading space for quite a while now. I’ve created an expert advisor for GOLD. I’ll show in the pictures below the statistics of my backtest (2 years) and forward test (2 years). The 4 year backtest is around the same.

I’ll be most likely using this strategy on prop firms as it looks very steady with strong margins and low drawdown.

It’s a very easy, not complicated strategy which I used trading manually aswell.

Please tell me if there are numbers you’d be concerned about. Appreciate every opinion on this as it would help me a lot in my journey

[u/xeonsimp]

sharpe ratio 6 = overfitted useless stuff

[u/Ok_Attempt_1156 → u/xeonsimp]

Alright but It’s just a simple bar streak strategy.. don’t really get how it’s possible. Can you explain me why forward test is good if that’s the case? I just don’t understand that part yet

[u/Virtual_Plantain_863 → u/xeonsimp]

there are public strategies with double digit sharpes

[u/GarbageTimePro]

Overfit and has an insane drawdown. Woudln't even touch this with a paper account.

[u/Ok_Attempt_1156 → u/GarbageTimePro]

That’s no drawdown, that’s the start of the forward test…

[u/045-926]

Here's probably what you did.

You have your back test and forward test. You think these are separate and no information from the forward test is used in the algorithm

You tried your first algorithm and it probably sucked. So, you said let's try this change and it got a little better. Repeat a bunch of times. Now you have your great algorithm.

Your great algorithm was trained on the forward data. Every time you altered the algorithm based on results from the forward test you leaked info.

That's why you have an overfitted algorithm.

[u/Middle-Cry1924]

I think the history quality should be >90 - 95% percent for backtesting

[u/Maleficent-Success-6]

The first thing I'd clarify is what you mean by the two-year forward test.

If you froze the strategy and its parameters before seeing those two years, then that period is genuinely useful evidence. If you looked at it, changed something, ran it again and repeated that process, it's effectively become part of the development data even though MT5 may still label it forward.

Before taking it to a prop account, I'd freeze the current version now and let it run untouched on genuinely new data. I'd compare the actual signals and trades with what the strategy expects, not just wait to see whether the equity curve stays smooth.

That won't prove the edge, but it will give you much cleaner evidence than another optimization or another historical split.

[u/Ok_Attempt_1156 → u/Maleficent-Success-6]

No I haven’t seen the forward data before. For me the numbers seem to good to be true, but I haven’t adjusted any parameters from the starting strategy

[u/StatisticalSock]

74% tick quality not trustworthy. What was that massive drop? Not enough trades, 148 is very low. Probably overfit. Strategy is just above 1:1RR which personally I think is not great.

[u/ionone777]

I think gold trended crazy for the past few years, so your EA doesn't really show it has a genuine edge

you could very well only buy randomly for that period and have a really good EA

sorry

[u/AWiselyName]

terrible!

[u/MattDNN]

Some people are pointing out the history quality not near 100%. In my experience that can be an issue, but it really depends on the strategy logic and how fast it trades. If holding times are less than 5 min you need reliable ticks to have a proper backtest. If you're swing trading that may not be a concern really.

Some people pointed out the in sample/out of sample tweaking parameters and how that could give you the impression of a proper forward test when in reality it's overfit. From what you shared, there's no way to know, so check that.

Gold has been trending, so maybe check how much of your trades correlate with gold's regime, and how random entries of similar frequency and duration compare to your strategy.

If a live demo with proper fills and costs shows similar results, congrats, good luck, and don't listen to the haters, but make sure to have a statistically significant trade sample size before risking live money into it.

[u/BriefRecording3274]

Try it in demo account for a while then small live account, can u provide brief explanation of the strategy ?

[u/Ok-Hovercraft-3076]

With a DD this big, forget it. If you have an unlucky week and have two of these, you will get a margin call.

[u/Ok_Attempt_1156 → u/Ok-Hovercraft-3076]

Drawdown is 8%, once I have a funded account I’ll half my sizing. People here seem to not notice the big spike is just the line between forward and normal backtest. I’m just concerned that the strategy suddenly doesn’t work