Check broker symbols, lots and trading costs

Identify the actual instrument

USDJPY, XAUUSD and .JP225Cash are reference symbols shown on the portal, not universal broker aliases. Match the economic instrument, cash or futures contract, suffix and session schedule. Preserve server timezone and daylight-saving conventions when reviewing session-sensitive setups. Renaming a different contract to look similar does not make its history equivalent.

Check order feasibility

Record contract size, tick size, loss tick value and volume minimum, maximum and step. Estimate loss at the intended stop in account currency and round volume down to a valid step. If the smallest permitted order exceeds the risk budget, the setup needs a different capital/risk configuration or cannot take that illustrated trade. Check stop-distance restrictions and free margin separately; a stop budget does not guarantee sufficient margin.

Retest costs and execution

Use the intended broker history with the complete preset and declared capital basis. Inspect spread by trading hour, commission, overnight financing and rejected orders. Compare trades and usable dates as well as profit. Keep the original broker result separate. A favorable run on one broker does not support the statement that an EA works identically on every broker.

Checks to make before deciding

• Inventory monthly bars and ticks for every required symbol. Distinguish market closures from unexpected missing intervals, using the broker session calendar rather than calendar-day counts alone.
• Check tick timestamps, duplicate entries, bid/ask validity and impossible prices. Investigate spikes against an independent reference before treating them as either genuine volatility or removable errors.
• Review tester logs for downloaded history, synchronization problems and generated tick substitutes. MT5 can generate ticks where minute bars lack ticks; real-tick mode is not a completeness certificate.
• Check bid/ask spread distributions by hour and date. Highlight rollovers and outliers; an average spread alone can conceal the periods that determine fills and stop execution.
• Read tick size, loss tick value, volume minimum, maximum and step from the intended broker symbol. Do not use generic pip values for metals, indices or unusual contract sizes.
• Estimate the stop loss for a supported reference volume, preferably checking OrderCalcProfit. Reject missing or invalid prices and currency conversions rather than falling back to an arbitrary size.
• Calculate raw lots from the risk budget and estimated loss per lot. Round down to a valid volume step; rounding to nearest can exceed the intended budget.
• If the minimum lot already exceeds the budget, skip the entry with a recorded reason. Never describe forced minimum-volume trades as maintaining the chosen risk percentage.