S/P 500 – how to find out the instrument properties at your MT4 broker?

Hallo Traders

Could you help me, how I could set up right these values? What should I look at my forex broker to? How should I calculate?

Thank you very much for the helps.

Brg, Csaba

you need to look at your broker specification – webpage, or MT platform, if you are talking about CFDs

but still you will be using Dukascopy data not the brokers data, and CFDs for indices could be very different, so your backtest could be not relevant

Hello,

the settings for US500 traded at Dukascopy are

point value = 1 USD (per 1 lot)
pip size = 0.01 (point)
pip step = 0.001 (they have 3 digits)

See this https://www.dukascopy.com/swiss/english/cfd/range-of-markets/

We have modified the setting for some CFDs since most brokers use different setting for those but if you intend to trade with Dukas you can use the above

Otherwise you need to select setting that matches your broker and test carefully. Test results does not have to be usable due to different specs

Hello Tomas

Thank you!

point value = 1 USD (per 1 lot) — does it mean, what is the profit / loss if I have 1 lot position and the prices moves 1 round number? Let say from 3700.00 >>> 3701.00 ? Or at EURUSD let say from 1.31000 >>> 2.31000
pip size = 0.01 (point) — if I have just a 2 digit broker it is then just 0.1 ?
pip step = 0.001 (they have 3 digits) — if I have just a 2 digit broker it is then just 0.01 ?

I attached my Admiral Markets screenshot too.

Thanks for the help again!

Brg, Csaba

dukascopy settings are 1 thing, but if you will be not trading dukascopy platform, its for nothing

every CFD SP500 contract will be very different, point value could be 1, 10, 50 or 100 USD

broker could have 1 or 2 decimals or even 3

so if you will not be trading with dukascopy broker, you cant use those settings, because you will be getting nonsense

and another issue with size 0.01 for dukascopy data, your SL ant TP must be very high, something like in 10000 as minimum, so its another flaw

so if we look to Admiral Markets, we can see very clearly the basics – 2 decimal points, point value 1 USD, but minimum lotsize is 0.1, trading hours 1-24

so the setting for SP on Admiral Markets should be point value 1, size 1, step 0.01 – by this setting 1 pip move will be from 3500 to 3501, and this is what makes sense, so your SL/TP ranges could be not in thousands

but again, with dukascopy data, your backtest will be not accurate, because CFD data are not similar

another problem is 2 decimals – because MQL code from SQX strats is not handling it right – so you will need to do this change and set manually this extern to TRUE

extern bool UseSQTickSize = true;

from picture you can see Admiral Markets with 2 decimal and the average daily range is 8557 ticks for 2 decimals, so with piptick size set as 0.01 you will need to set SL/TP accordingly – so what it will be – SL 4000, TP 20000?

does this make sense?

for me not, so i will set piptick to 1, so my SL and TP ranges ould be 40-200

you get it?

I think I stay with the forex pairs, because otherwise it is just too much mathemathic and headache.
SL and TP just based on FIXED PIP does not make for me too much sense, because then the system is not adopting itself to the market conditions.

I hope that at XAUUSD I wont have such a problem with “mathematic”.