Does my EA make money every year?

EA Trade Tester Demo lab How we test For AI agents

Published 11 November 2026 · methods v2.5 · by TrueTest

A ten-year backtest with a good total can still be one or two great years and many flat or losing ones. If you would have stopped the EA after its third losing year, the total is not a result you would have lived through. That is why our tests show every year.

See my EA year by year See a full example first

Drop your .mq5/.mq4 code, a Python bot or an MT5 report on the home page. The first read takes seconds and needs no sign-up; the lab verdict is free too. Only the detailed technical report is paid (the full PDF report is GBP 49). The price shown is the total price: no VAT is added. TrueTest is not VAT-registered in the UK. We read your code as text and never run it as given; an outside AI service drafts the rule card only if you tick the box (see Security). Not financial advice.

What do we show?

In the lab: every calendar year of the rebuilt strategy, with normal and with extra costs, over up to 16 years of data in three periods that never overlap.
In a record check: profit or loss per calendar year of the trades you sent; years with at least 10 trades are counted, and losing years are listed.

A real example from our own tests

One of our own research rules (a London-session breakout on three yen pairs, not for sale) averaged about +0.17 R a trade in our first period (2010-2017), about +0.005 R in the second (January 2018 to September 2022) and about +0.10 R in the third (September 2022 to 2026). The total looked fine. Year by year, almost five years earned nothing, and with extra costs that middle period was negative. Our verdict for it was not a pass.

How do I read a year table?

Count the losing years and the longest run of them. Would you have kept going?
Look for one year that carries the total: remove it, and see what is left.
Check the years with extra costs too: a strategy that only wins with the cheapest costs is fragile.
Compare recent years with old ones: markets change, and an edge that faded is common.

Is one losing year a reason to drop an EA?

No. Real strategies have losing years. The questions are how many, how deep, and whether the good years are more than luck after counting your tries (real or luck).

More guides: Free forex EA tester online · Is my EA martingale or grid? How to tell · How many backtests? Overfitting explained · EA costs: spread, commission and swap · TrueTest vs StrategyQuant, Forex Tester, MT5 · MQL5 / MQL4 EA code checker · EA trading at the wrong hour? Server time · Why live results are worse than the backtest · Does my EA repaint or look ahead? · Can a scalping EA make money after costs? · Will my EA pass a prop-firm challenge? · What to check before you buy an EA

Questions people ask

How many years of data do you test?

Up to 16 years for 8 symbols (EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, GBPJPY, EURJPY, AUDUSD, USDCAD, GOLD), from August 2010.

Why three separate periods?

So that a result found in one period can be checked in periods it was not tuned on. The periods never overlap.

My EA only has two years of history. Can you still test it?

Yes: we test our rebuild of its rules on the full history, so older years are included even if the EA is new.

Is this financial advice?

No. A year table describes the past only. Not financial advice.