Advisory – Beta Testing

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I am going to be sending out a copy of the Qx M15 RSI Scalper for all
existing customers to try. I think I already made the proposal that
anyone who wants to Beta Test this expert and submits their historic
test reports to me will receive a copy of the “final edition”. But,
those who want to participate in this offer should be aware of a few
things with regard to the edition you are going to receive and what I
am expecting in the way of reports.

Beta Editions
The Beta Edition of the Qx M15 RSI Scalper will be a compiled ex4
edition that has all of the inputs preset to the testing conditions.
It will be set up to trade on a $50,000 account. And everyone needs to
use the same test period of from between Jan 5 2009 to March 2 2009.
Other than that I am hoping for tests on different broker platforms
and on different currency pairs. With regard to currency pairs – I
would recommend that you use only those pairs that have LESS THAN A 5
PIP SPREAD. You can find these pairs listed in the “Spreads and Swaps”
document. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE IT ON ANY JPY PAIR. Since I do not use
the “Point” operator in any of my programs the JPY pairs have to be
set up separately.

With regard to the reports, instructions as to how to create and save
historic tests is set out in the “Managing Files and Reports”
document. You are certainly welcome to try optimizations or different
settings on your own accord but for the tests please only use the
settings that come with the Expert. It should also be noted that these
tests are NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH PROFIT THE EXPERT MAKES. The tests are
primarily about consistent performance by various users on different
pairs on different trading platforms. As I have tried to describe with
regard to the FAP program, the coding revisions made to optimize
profitability are really rather useless if the program produces a wide
range of results between various test modes and broker accounts.

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If you should decide to participate in any Quantum Xcel Beta tests
there are a few things you should know about the process. As a general
rule these things pertain to the development of every Expert Advisor
as well as the procedures to used for testing.

Expert Development
There are actually two main phases of Expert Advisor development, at
least as far as any EA’s I create. The first is the construction of
the strategy coding which goes hand in hand with stability testing,
and the second is the refinement of the strategy coding with regard to
correcting losing situations that might not have been foreseen in the
original strategy concepts. The second phase is usually the most time
consuming and involves the most testing and retesting.

In the first phase, the most important concern is the stability of the
original strategy coding, in other words does the Expert produce
consistent results in the various test modes and between different
broke platforms. Without some degree of consistent results any further
optimization of the strategy is rather useless. From a potential users
stand point this is also an opportunity to see how the Expert works
and what all of the variable inputs do. During this phase of testing
profitability is not the real issue, it is about order executions in a
timely manner and consistent results whether those be profits or
losses. The program has to be allowed to run through the whole cycle
of profits and losses over an extended period of time in order to
identify the weakness of the strategy and the coding.

Expert Testing
In order to have the test results meaningful everyone has to do it the
same way. This is a performance comparison, not a profitability
comparison. I am looking for performance deviations between platforms
and currencies. Unless advised other wise the following criteria will
generally be applied to all Quantum Xcel beta tests.

1) Set the Test Account Balance to $50,000.
This account level allows a cushion for losses.
2) Use the specified Currencies.
All Quantum Xcel Experts are developed on the EUR/USD.
Test any other currencies as recommended.
3) Use the specified Time Period.
A specific time period test range will be advised with the test offer.
4) Run the program in historic mode – first with Control Points and
then with Tick by Tick. Only send Tick By Tick historic Reports but
note if there is a substantial difference in performance between
Control Points and Tick by Tick
5) Be sure to down load the latest historical price data before you
run
the tests.

Downloading Historical Price Data
To download the latest historic price data please do the following:

1) Click on the “Tools” prompt at the top of the MT4 platform
2) Click on “History Center”.
3) Open the “Forex” folder or the “Forex Majors” folder.
4) Click on the currency you want to download
5) Click on the “Download” button at the bottom of the currencies
list.
6) You will see a Window that tells you that you are going to download
data from MT4, click “OK.”
7) After the download is complete, click on the “Download” button
again. You will seed the download MT4 data window once again, click
“OK” again. You will now see another window that says that there is no
new data “do you want to recalculate all timeframes?” Click “Yes”.
8) You will now see the download MT4 data window once again, click
“OK”, one last time and you are done.

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