The MQL5 program usability is determined by both its rich functionality and an elaborate graphical user interface. Visual perception is sometimes more important than fast and stable operation. Here is a step-by-step guide to creating display panels on the basis of the Standard Library classes on your own.
The article familiarizes the reader with exponential smoothing models used for short-term forecasting of time series. In addition, it touches upon the issues related to optimization and estimation of the forecast results and provides a few examples of scripts and indicators. This article will be useful as a first acquaintance with principles of forecasting on the basis of exponential smoothing models.
The Championship fervour has finally subsided and we can take a breath and start rethinking its results again. And we have another winner Alexander Arashkevich (AAA777) from Belarus, who has won a special prize from the major sponsor of Automated Trading Championship 2011 - a 3 day trip to one of the Formula One races of the 2012 season. We could not miss the opportunity to talk with him.
This article introduces a class designed to give a quick preliminary estimate of characteristics of various time series. As this takes place, statistical parameters and autocorrelation function are estimated, a spectral estimation of time series is carried out and a histogram is built.
Expert Advisor Visual Wizard for MetaTrader 5 provides a highly intuitive graphical environment with a comprehensive set of predefined trading blocks that let you design Expert Advisors in minutes. The click, drag and drop approach of Expert Advisor Visual Wizard allows you to create visual representations of forex trading strategies and signals as you would with pencil and paper. These trading diagrams are analyzed automatically by Molanis’ MQL5 code generator that transforms them into ready to use Expert Advisors. The interactive graphical environment simplifies the design process and eliminates the need to write MQL5 code.
The market price is formed out of a stable balance between demand and supply which, in turn, depend on a variety of economic, political and psychological factors. Differences in nature as well as causes of influence of these factors make it difficult to directly consider all the components. This article sets forth an attempt to predict the market price on the basis of an elaborated regression model.
This article is a logical continuation of my article Statistical Probability Distributions in MQL5 which set forth the classes for working with some theoretical statistical distributions. Now that we have a theoretical base, I suggest that we should directly proceed to real data sets and try to make some informational use of this base.
This is the last of the three articles devoted to graphical controls. It covers the creation of the main graphical interface component - the form - and its use in combination with other controls. In addition to the form classes, CFrame, CButton, CLabel classes have been added to the control library.
This article describes how object-oriented programming can be used for creating multi-timeframe and multi-currency panels for MetaTrader 5. The main goal is to build a universal panel, which can be used for displaying many different kinds of data, such as prices, price changes, indicator values or custom buy/sell conditions without the need to modify the code of the panel itself.
On the eleventh week of the Automated Trading Championship, Andrea Zani (sbraer) got featured very close to the top five of the competition. It is on the sixth place with about 47,000 USD now. Andrea's Expert Advisor AZXY has made only one losing deal, which was at the very beginning of the Championship. Since then, its equity curve has been steadily growing.
On the seventh week of the Championship, Li Fang's Expert Advisor (lf8749) set a new record - it earned over $100,000 in 10 trades. This successful series helped the Expert Advisor to stay at the very top of the Automated Trading Championship 2011 rating for two weeks. In this interview we tried to find out the secret of Li Fang's success.
The second article of the "Custom Graphical Controls" series introduces a control library for handling the main problems arising in interaction between a program (Expert Advisor, script, indicator) and a user. The library contains a great number of classes (CInputBox, CSpinInputBox, CCheckBox, CRadioGroup, CVSсrollBar, CHSсrollBar, CList, CListMS, CComBox, CHMenu, CVMenu, CHProgress, CDialer, CDialerInputBox, CTable) and examples of their use.
This article describes MQL5-RPC framework that enables Remote Procedure Calls from MQL5. It starts with XML-RPC basics, MQL5 implementation and follows with two real usage examples. First example is using external web service and the second one is a client to simple XML-RPC ATC 2011 Analyzer service. If you are interested on how to implement and analyze different statistics from ATC 2011 in real time, this article is just for you.
The task of writing an Expert Advisor trading on multiple currency pairs is complex both in terms of finding suitable strategies and from the technological side. But if the goal is set clear, nothing is impossible then. It was four times already that Vitaly Mazurenko (notused) submitted his multi-currency Expert Advisor. It seems, he has managed to find the right way this time.
You don't need to know what are polymorphism, encapsulation, etc. all about in to use object-oriented programming (OOP)... you may simply use these features. This article covers the basics of OOP with hands-on examples.
Since the first Automated Trading Championship we have seen plenty of trading robots in our TOP-10 created with the use of various methods. Excellent results were shown both by the Exper Advisors based on standard indicators, and complicated analytical complexes with weekly automatic optimization of their own parameters.
It was only this summer that Vitaly Antonov (beast) has learned about the upcoming Automated Trading Championship and got to know MetaTrader 5 terminal. Time was running out, besides, Vitaly was a newcomer. So, he randomly chose GBPUSD currency pair to develop his trading system. And the choice turned out to be successful. It would have been impossible to use other symbols with the strategy.
The article addresses probability distributions (normal, log-normal, binomial, logistic, exponential, Cauchy distribution, Student's t-distribution, Laplace distribution, Poisson distribution, Hyperbolic Secant distribution, Beta and Gamma distribution) of random variables used in Applied Statistics. It also features classes for handling these distributions.
I think financial markets are like manic-depressive patients. Sell when they have mania, and buy when they have depression. The envelope helps me determine where these levels of depression and mania are. There is a joke: "A neurotic is a man who builds castles in the skies, psychotic is the one who lives in them, and a psychiatrist is a person who collects the rent." I want to be a psychiatrist in the market. I want to collect the rent from the madness of the crowd.
There is no trouble finding the Holy Grail of testing, it is however much more difficult to get rid of it. This article addresses the selection of the Expert Advisor operating parameters with automated group processing of optimisation and testing results upon maximum utilisation of the Terminal performance capabilities and minimum end user load.
Interview with Boris Odintsov (bobsley) is the last one within the ATC Champions League project. Boris won the Automated Trading Championship 2010 - the first Championship held for the Expert Advisors in the new MQL5 language. Having appeared in the top ten already in the first week of the ATC 2010, his EA brought it to the finish and earned $77,000. This year, Boris participates in the competition with the same Expert Advisor with modified settings. Perhaps the robot would still be able to repeat its success.
Just over a year ago joo, in his article "Genetic Algorithms - It's Easy!", gave us a tool for implementation of the genetic algorithm in MQL5. Now utilizing the tool we will create an Expert Advisor that will genetically optimize its own parameters upon certain boundary conditions...
The Expert Advisor by Ge Senlin (yyy999) from China got featured in the top ten of the Automated Trading Championship 2011 in late October and hasn't left it since then. Not often participants from the PRC show good results in the Championship - Forex trading is not allowed in this country. After the poor results in the previous year ATC, Senlin has prepared a new multicurrency Expert Advisor that never closes loss positions and uses position increase instead. Let's see whether this EA will be able to rise even higher with such a risky strategy.
Analyse and examples of techniques how trading analysis can be performed on MetaTrader 5 platform, but executed by MetaTrader 4. Article will show you how to create simple signal provider in your MetaTrader 5, and connect to it with multiple clients, even running MetaTrader 4. Also you will find out how you can follow participants of Automated Trading Championship in your real MetaTrader 4 account.
The Expert Advisor of Ilnur Khasanov (aharata) is holding its place in our TOP-10 chart of the Automated Trading Championship 2011 participants from the third week already, though Ilnur's acquaintance with Forex has started only a year ago. The idea that forms the basis of the Expert Advisor is simple but the trading robot contains self-optimization elements. Perhaps, that is the key to its survival? Besides, the author had to change the Expert Advisor planned to be submitted for the Championship...
Appearance of the Expert Advisor cs2011 by Igor Korepin (Xupypr) at the very top of the Automated Trading Championship 2011 was really impressive - its balance was almost twice that of the EA featured on the second place. However, despite such a sound breakaway, the Expert Advisor could not stay long on the first line. Igor frankly said that he relied much on a lucky start of his trading robot in the competition. We'll see if luck helps this simple EA to take the lead in the ATC 2011 race again.
EA Tree is the first drag and drop MetaTrader MQL5 Expert Advisor builder. You can create complex MQL5 using a very easy to use graphical user interface. In EA Tree, Expert Advisors are created by connecting boxes together. Boxes may contain MQL5 functions, technical indicators, custom indicators, or values. Using the "tree of boxes", EA Tree generates the MQL5 code of the Expert Advisor.
A student from Germany Tim Fass (Tim) is participating in the Automated Trading Championship for the first time. Nevertheless, his Expert Advisor The_Wild_13 already got featured at the very top of the Championship rating and seems to be holding his position in the top ten. Tim told us about his Expert Advisor, his faith in the success of simple strategies and his wildest dreams.
Interview with Olexandr Topchylo (Better) is the second publication within the "ATC Champions League" project. Having won the Automated Trading Championship 2007, this professional trader caught the attention of investors. Olexandr says that his first place in the ATC 2007 is one of the major events of his trading experience. However, later on this popularity helped him discover the biggest disappointment - it is so easy to lose investors after the first drawdown on an investor account.
What is common between skydiving, Futures, Hawaii, translations and spies? We didn't know it until we've managed to communicate with disqualified participant Atsushi Yamanaka (alohafx). His has a creed "Life is Good!", and one can hardly doubt that. It was interesting to know that distances between the continents are not an obstacle for communication among our Championship's participants.
Ukrainian programmer Andrei Moraru (enivid) is an active participant of the Automated Trading Championship beginning from 2007. Andrei had already come in our view at that time and now we have decided to find out if there occured any changes in his attitude towards trading and selection of trading strategies for the past four years, and also to know about his new Expert Advisor.
In the second week of the competition, the Expert Advisor of Sergey Nikitin (VNIK) trading on two currency pairs EURUSD and EURJPY got featured on the very top drawing away from the rest. Multicurrency Expert Advisors always attract attention in the Championship, especially those that show good results. We talked with Sergey about the role of luck in a trader's life and his way of trading.
This is the first interview in the "ATC Champions League" project. Roman Zamozhniy (Rich) from Ukraine was the winner of the first Automated Trading Championship in 2006. In addition, he is a regular participant of our Championships - he has not missed a single contest. In this interview, we talked about Roman's first place and tried to figure out what is necessary for successful participation.
Antonio Morillas from Spain (sallirom, by the way - it is reversed surname!) was first who doubled his starting balance from the beginning of the Championship and thus attracted our attention. His trading strategy is extremely risky. We decided to talk to Antonio about risk and luck as these are part and parcel of Automated Trading Championship.
On the second day of the Championship the Expert Advisor created by Matúš German (gery18) increased its capital by 2.5 times and took the lead being ahead of all competitors. Matúš himself doubts his Expert Advisor will win, he thinks that luck and high risk were the reasons of such unexpected rise.
This article covers general principles of development of graphical controls. We are going to prepare tools for a quick and convenient work with graphical objects, analyze an example of creation of a simple control for entering text or numeric data as well as the ways of using it.
A programmer from Krasnoyarsk Nikolay Ivanov (Techno) is a leader among the developers in terms of the number of completed orders - he has implemented already more than 200 applications in the Jobs service. In this interview, he is talking about the Jobs service, its specific features and challengers faced by programmers.
Andrey Bolkonsky (abolk) has been participating in the Jobs service since its opening. He has developed dozens of indicators and Expert Advisors for the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. We will talk with Andrey about what a server is from the perspective of a programmer.
A Ukrainian developer Andrey Voitenko (avoitenko) is an active participant of the "Jobs" service at mql5.com, helping traders from all over the world to implement their ideas. Last year Andrey's Expert Advisor was on the fourth place in the Automated Trading Championship 2010, being slightly behind the bronze winner. This time we are discussing the Jobs service with Andrey.
The MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal offers a wide range of opportunities for optimization of Expert Advisor parameters. In addition to the optimization criteria included in the strategy tester, developers are given the opportunity of creating their own criteria. This leads to an almost limitless number of possibilities of testing and optimizing of Expert Advisors. The article describes practical ways of creating such criteria - both complex and simple ones.
We now know that probability density function (PDF) of a market cycle does not remind a Gaussian but rather a PDF of a sine wave and most of the indicators assume that the market cycle PDF is Gaussian we need a way to "correct" that. The solution is to use Fisher Transform. The Fisher transform changes PDF of any waveform to approximately Gaussian. This article describes the mathematics behind the Fisher Transform and the Inverse Fisher Transform and their application to trading. A proprietary trading signal module based on the Inverse Fisher Transform is presented and evaluated.
The article deals with the methods of indicators computational algorithms optimization. Everyone will find a method that suits his/her needs best. Three methods are described here.One of them is quite simple, the next one requires solid knowledge of Math and the last one requires some wit. Indicators or MetaTrader5 terminal design features are used to realize most of the described methods. The methods are quite universal and can be used not only for acceleration of the linear regression calculation, but also for many other indicators.
The article presents the indicators, described in the book by William Blau "Momentum, Direction, and Divergence". William Blau's approach allows us to promptly and accurately approximate the fluctuations of the price curve, to determine the trend of the price movements and the turning points, and eliminate the price noise. Meanwhile, we are also able to detect the overbought/oversold states of the market, and signals, indicating the end of a trend and reversal of the price movement.
Even simple programs may often have errors that seem to be unbelievable. "How could I create that?" is our first thought when such an error is revealed. "How can I avoid that?" is the second question which comes to our mind less frequently. It is impossible to create absolutely faultless code, especially in big projects, but it is possible to use technologies for their timely detection. The article describes how the MQL4 code quality can be enhanced with the help of the popular Unit Testing method.
The player of trading. Only four words, no explanation is needed. Thoughts about a small box with buttons come to your mind. Press one button - it plays, move the lever - the playback speed changes. In reality, it is pretty similar. In this article, I want to show my development that plays trade history almost like it is in real time. The article covers some nuances of OOP, working with indicators and managing charts.
User interface of the MetaTrader 5 platform is translated into several languages. Don't worry if your native language is not among the supported ones. You can easily complete the translation using the special MetaTrader 5 MultiLanguage Pack utility, offered by MetaQuotes Software Corp. for free to all comers. In this article we will show some examples of how to add a new user interface languages to the MetaTrader 5 platform.