In March, MetaQuotes had launched a public beta of MetaTrader 5 platform with position hedging and backtesting on real ticks. In April, the developer had pushed the modification to brokers’ demo servers. The companies can disable creation of hedging accounts in MT5 (which they mostly do). However, the feature is already there and soon will be used not only in demo accounts but also in live accounts once the necessary preparations are over. Strategy testing on real tick data vs. the modeled ticks is already a reality at brokers with MT5 platform.
To me, the changes look quite serious. When MT5 was first released in 2009, the inability to open two opposite trades for the same currency pair was the major
The addition of backtesting based on real ticks has made the transition to MT5 even more tempting. Consider the difference between the old testing method (tick modeling) and the new one (real ticks).
Here is the backtest of the example MACD expert advisor on a year worth of data done on modeled ticks:
And here is the same backtest done using the real ticks:
As you can see, the discrepancy is rather dramatic.
The biggest drawback of the current situation, which inhibits any real conversion from MT4 to MT5, is a very slow adoption by brokers. Only a minority of the Forex brokers offer MT5. Just a fraction of them updated their platform to the Build 1325. Only few of those offer hedging demo accounts, and none so far went to live trading with the new features. If the companies do not change the conditions, there will be no real adoption of MT5.
I believe that this is the genuine chance for the Forex trading platform industry to move forward as the perks of moving to MT5 are now quite clear. The question is, will the brokers and traders follow MetaQuotes’ call?
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