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Date/Time: Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:14:34 +0000



[User Discussion] - Do You Guys Use the "Commission" to Account for your "Spread" when trading Forex? Or?

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[2015-03-25 20:11:07]
Auspicatum - Posts: 46
I think the title pretty much sums up my question.

I can't figure out how to get the spread to show up correctly when I look at the "Trade Activity Log" after I've been using the "Replay" to manually back-test.

I've been suggested something about changing the "tick size"... which I did change to 0.00025 instead of 0.00005
in order to try and make the spread be more like 25 pips instead of 5 pips. But this is giving me strange behavior on the charts. Is this how you guys do it ??

or...do you use the commission to just subtract the spread from each trade?

Please help me !
[2015-03-26 02:21:43]
Kiwi - Posts: 375
Its logical to do that given that the fx suppliers are essentially using spread as commission.

You have to work out some sort of average spread (to convert to commission) to account for any times when its being inflated to account for supplier risk.
[2015-03-26 23:18:44]
Auspicatum - Posts: 46
....Kiwi....thank you. What I am asking though is...Is that what everyone usually does to account for spread when backtesting? OR is there a built in way that Sierra Charts intends to take care of that?

This seems like such a basic and important thing that every single user would have to deal with. So, this must be a common question and I am guessing that Sierra Charts has a built in way that deals with the spread.

I have the basic FXCM data feed (I think... it's the one that comes with the most basic package of Sierra Charts).

It seems like there is a built in spread of about .00005, which is the "tick size". But this doesn't exactly make sense to me. There is nothing in the documentation that specifically says...."go here to adjust the spread"....or "this is how we account for the spread".

One person suggested changing the tick size to something close to what I think the spread is. But why do I even have to guess at it. Why isn't this simply built into the software/data as I back-test??

And Kiwi, again, I hear you saying that is a logical thing to do...but is it what you do? Is it what most people do? Again, this is an issue that every single trader has to deal with as they back-test. So...what is the way that Sierra Charts intends us to account for the spread. ????

Please Help! Its been several days now Of me asking this same question and I can't seem to get an answer that really answers the question. This is particularly frustrating because I am forced to pay by the day, and thus several days have gone by where I can not make good use of the software. And there is no phone number to call for customer service as far as I can see.... so that leaves this forum...and getting an answer seems rather difficult. (Not that I'm ingrate to the answer that Kiwi gave me...thank you Kiwi !) Sierra Charts...please help me! And try to articulate something more than a cut and paste to the documentation, which I've now read over several times.
Date Time Of Last Edit: 2015-03-26 23:25:31

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