Hi Mark,
Thanks for your very good questions!
EATradingAcademy uses ExpressGenerator to create the strategies and EA Studio to further filter the strategies and to download the strategies as Expert Advisors. I have these same tools and use them in a similar process to create my own Expert Advisors.
As to using the Top 10 app backtester is the historical data is from Blackbull. It is a well known fact that all forex brokers have do not use the same historical data as there is not a common place for them to all download the same historical data. As a result, Expert Advisors trade differently with the various brokers. This is easily demonstrated using EA Studio. When an EA is uploaded into EA Studio the balance line will look different when switching to the various brokers. In some cases an upward sloping balance line will actually turn into a downward sloping balance line when switching to a different broker. As a result, it is fullish to think you can take a top performing Top 10 robot and use it when any broker expecting the same or similar results. This is why I do my final testing of EAs using the broker I plan on using when live trading.
As to using the MetaTrader Strategy Tester I know it is not as accurate as using EA Studio (the worlds best backtester). I tested using EA Studio and the MetaTrader Strategy Tester with the Top 10 robots with the same brokers historical data. I found that after selecting the top 5 robots with EA Studio and the top 5 robots using the Strategy Tester, four out of the five selected robots were the same. The actual profit and number of trades do vary between using EA Studio or the Strategy tester but the actual selection of robots are almost the same.
I am using the Strategy Tester as many traders here in the EATradingAcademy Forums do not have EA Studio or any other paid backtester. What I am doing here is to use the same tools other traders have access. In using the Strategy Tester I am not looking for accuracy I am just looking for EAs that are moving in a positive direction as an initial determination as to which of the Top 10 robots to start with in a demo account. I then test these robots (EAs) in a demo account with the same broker I am planning on using for live trading.
I hope this answers your questions!
Alan,