Invalid trade volume error in MT4 tester
Fadi Al Khoury
I was hoping someone could help me out with an issue I'm having. I tried compiling several codes I got from Builder, including one from the example. When I run the strategy in the Metatrader tester, I always get errors like these:
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.03 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: Short entry order at market could not be placed: invalid trade volume
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.03 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: Alert: Short entry order at market could not be placed: invalid trade volume
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.03 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: OrderSend error 131
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.02 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: Short stop entry order at 1.2776 could not be placed: invalid trade volume
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.02 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: Alert: Short stop entry order at 1.2776 could not be placed: invalid trade volume
2014.01.29 14:23:02 2013.04.02 00:00 temp EURUSDm,Daily: OrderSend error 131
My broker is IBFX. It offers: 5 decimal quotes, 10k lots (for mini accounts), min lot size of 0.01 (of 10k).
I'm not sure if builder is designed to accommodate brokers like mine, since the minimum shares and round shares options in the Evaluation tab allow only integer input. If the only way around this is for me to change the code, I can try that since I've worked on simple mql4 coding before.
Advice welcomed.
Michael R. Bryant
Those errors imply your trade size is invalid. You don’t need fractional position sizes in Builder to get your micro lot. Builder works in “shares”, not lots. A full-size forex lot is 100000 shares, a mini lot is 10000 shares, etc. In Builder, the point value should be 1, and the number of shares should be 1000 for a lot size of .01 (i.e., 0.01 x 100000).
Mike Bryant
Subject: Invalid trade volume error in MT4 tester
Fadi Al Khoury
I'm still trying to get the results to match. I adjusted the start of the data in the History Center to match Builder as you advised in other posts, but I still got really different results.
If I choose the "every tick" option for the 10 year period of builder, I get a lot of unmatched data errors and one write file error, with no trades. If instead, I simulate over the first 5 months, I get some trades with modelling quality 12% but they are nothing like Builder's. I read another post where mandelmus says that we "must develop all [our] strategies, regardless of time frame, using all available tick data." Is this really necessary for daily strategies. I doubt I have enough computational resources for that.
If I use "control points" or "open prices" modelling, I am able to get through the 10 years but the results still don't match Builder, or each other. My strategy is for the daily chart, and seems to do the work only at the open -- if (Volume[0] <= 1).
I realise that the data files are not identical, but I thought the strategy's good performance in the stress test would at least suggest it is robust to price differences between data sources.
Michael R. Bryant
Because of the way MT4 works, you need to select “Every tick” as the Model when running strategies, as advised in the user’s guide. If you do that, you should get similar results unless you have a significant number of trades that exit on the bar of entry. In that case, as discussed in a number of other posts, you will probably not get good results. I generally advise against such strategies. If that defines your strategies, you should move to a smaller bar size so that your trades are not exiting on the same bar that they entry on.
Mike Bryant
Subject: Re: Invalid trade volume error in MT4 tester
