GrailMeter Script – Measuring Your Robot's Grailness
Almost every trader who is actively interested in automated trading and various Forex advisors has encountered the so-called Grails.
Among stock market players, the Grail is a term used to describe experts who demonstrate phenomenal results historically, but deliver completely opposite results in real trading conditions.
Typically, naive beginners, prone to the temptation to make a quick buck, fall into the Grail trap.
A fairly common scenario is when someone sees phenomenal results in the tester and then installs the expert advisor on a real account, but due to increased trust and hope, quickly loses their deposit.
To avoid such situations, professional traders always recommend testing the expert advisor on a demo account before installing it on a real account.
So, is it really impossible to determine whether you're looking at a single tester without first testing it on a demo account, or whether it's a Grail or a truly profitable robot? In fact, determining whether an expert is Grail-like is quite simple, and the GrailMeter script can help you do just that.
Installing the GrailMeter script
Before you begin installation, you'll need to go to the end of the article and download the script file. The GrailMeter script is designed for the MT4 trading platform, so we'll need to install it first.
To do this, launch the trading terminal and go to the File menu. In the menu that opens, find the line labeled "Data Directory." Once the data directory opens, you'll see a list of system folders. Find the folder labeled "Scripts" and drop GrailMeter into it.
Once you close all folders and restart the trading terminal, the script will be ready to work.
The Reasons for Grails in Forex. Working with the GrailMeter Script
As strange as it may sound, Grails emerged from our greed and desire for quick profits. It's no secret that the Forex market has become highly commercialized, meaning that if there are people willing to buy a profitable advisor, then naturally, there are also sellers.
However, along with honest developers, so-called scammers appeared who took advantage of the vulnerability of the trading terminal MT4 They began creating and selling so-called tester Grails. The strategy tester's vulnerability lies in the fact that it doesn't store tick price values, but generates them independently based on partial data.
Thus, by including a minute chart and selecting all ticks, the strategy tester simply invents price behavior based on two known extreme opening and closing prices. Knowing the approximate algorithm for generating these ticks, scammers create so-called tick robots that predict the strategy tester's behavior in advance.
As a rule, Grails appear under the cover of scalping and pipsing robots.
Advisor or profitable robot.
You should pay attention to the expert advisor's closing and opening prices. To implement the deception described above, the advisor must close positions within the bar, so by examining the closing percentage of such trades, you can draw conclusions about the expert advisor.
To save yourself the time-consuming calculations, you can use the GrailMeter script. First, launch the strategy tester and run a test in visualization mode. After the strategy tester completes the test, simply drag the GrailMeter script onto the visualization window.
A window will appear in front of you, in which, using bars, the script will show the grail of your advisor, and also indicate the number of trades opened and closed within the bar.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to know which expert advisor you're using before purchasing or downloading it. However, with the GrailMeter script, we can avoid the discrepancy between the real account's profitability and the strategy tester's without any risk to our deposit.
Download the GrailMeter script
