{Question} Spotting a repainting indicator before testing

Does anyone know of any tell tail signs within the mq4 code of an indicator to see if repaints or not?

 

You find an indicator which looks really good, then spend a lot of time checking it out - only to find it repaints sooner or later.

 

Any guidance would be most appreciated.

I'm not sure about the code but if it's picking exact tops and bottoms that's a good clue it's a repainter. Like you I spent alot of time and been disappointed to find out the perfect indicator doesn't exist

What i do just test the indicator with metatrader simulator,to check it repaint or not..

I can't understand about coding but just back test any EA by visual mode and attach indicator which you want to check repainting or not.

its the easiest and fastest way to check repaints I think.

 

Just tried with an ind that look promising. Too good to be be true - it was repainting to make itself perfect.

maven, that indicator must work for Hollywood as an actor, not for Forex! The indicator definition: If it picks the lows and highs exactly, it repaints! If it doesn't, it is lagging indicator! Both are useless for those who cannot see.

Your knowledge, experience and intuition must melt with the indicator's signals. Those 3 working together will not repaint.

Hermes

@hermes points are very valid.

That said, there are indicators that repaint on refresh and those are usually because they do some higher time frame processing and the repaint is legitimate in these cases. Then there are indicators that repaint or reprocess on every tick or every bar and those are the notorious ones. They look so perfect because they base their analysis on future data! An easy way to tell those is by looking at the code. if the processing of historical bars in the "start" routines starts from bar 0 and goes higher, another words from latest bar to the oldest bar as opposed to oldest to newest then they are repainting. Hope this helps.

If an indicator repaints in 1M time frame then definitely repaints in all time frames. So, it is better to check it in 1M before studying an indicator. There is no indicator to get exact H/L. It will indicate only the prevailing trend and can not predict future. If we try to code an indicator to predict the future price movement then there will a be lot of chances to reverse, since the price movement is only based on demand-supply theory.

you can spot it in some indicator's under code that says '' last counted bars will be recounted''