Articles with MQL5 programming examples

Tutorial to build a Binary Options strategy an test it in Strategy-Tester of MetaTrader 4 with Binary-Options-Strategy-Tester utility from marketplace.

The article deals with the simultaneous launch of Expert Advisor testing on four different trading instruments. The final comparison of four testing reports is provided in a table similar to how goods are represented in online stores. An additional bonus is that distribution charts will be automatically created for each symbol.

The article features formalized rules of two trading strategies 'Turtle Soup' and 'Turtle Soup Plus One' from Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies by Linda Bradford Raschke and Laurence A. Connors. The strategies described in the book are quite popular. But it is important to understand that the authors have developed them based on the 15...20 year old market behavior.

Global variables of the terminal provide an indispensable tool for developing sophisticated and reliable Expert Advisors. If you master the global variables, you will no more be able to imagine developing EAs on MQL5 without them.

This time we will consider the Standard chart control. It will allow to create arrays of subcharts with the ability to synchronize horizontal scrolling. In addition, we will continue to optimize the library code to reduce the CPU load.

This practice-oriented article focuses on working with files in MQL5. It offers a number of simple tasks allowing you to grasp the basics and hone your skills.

The next version of the Easy And Fast library (version 3) is presented in this article. Fixed certain flaws and added new features. More details further in the article.

The article reveals the portfolio trading principles and their application to Forex market. A few simple mathematical portfolio arrangement models are considered. The article contains examples of practical implementation of the portfolio trading in MetaTrader 4: portfolio indicator and Expert Advisor for semi-automated trading. The elements of trading strategies, as well as their advantages and pitfalls are described.

Analysis of the trade history and plotting distribution charts of trading results in HTML depending on position entry time. The charts are displayed in three sections - by hours, by days of the week and by months.

Have you ever wondered how quickly your order is delivered to the exchange, how fast it is executed, and how much time your terminal needs in order to receive the operation result? We have prepared a comparison of trading operation execution speed, because no one has ever measured these values using applications in MQL5 and QLUA.

The article describes the process of developing and implementing a class for sending signals based on the moving channels. Each of the signal version is followed by a trading strategy with testing results. Classes of the Standard Library are used for creating derived classes.

Scalping automatic systems are rightfully regarded the pinnacle of algorithmic trading, but at the same time their code is the most difficult to write. In this article we will show how to build strategies based on analysis of incoming ticks using the built-in debugging tools and visual testing. Developing rules for entry and exit often require years of manual trading. But with the help of MetaTrader 5, you can quickly test any such strategy on real history.

When you subscribe to signals, such situation may occur: your trade account has a leverage of 1:100, the provider has a leverage of 1:500 and trades using the minimal lot, and your trade balances are virtually equal — but the copy ratio will comprise only 10% to 15%. This article describes how to increase the copy rate in such cases.

Since the publication of the previous article in the series, Easy And Fast library has received some new features. The library structure and code have been partially optimized slightly reducing CPU load. Some recurring methods in many control classes have been moved to the CElement base class.

The second chapter of the part nine is dedicated to the progress bar and line chart controls. As always, there will be detailed examples provided to reveal how these controls can be used in custom MQL applications.

With this article we begin chapter nine of series of articles dedicated to creating graphical interfaces in MetaTrader trading terminals. It consists of two chapters where new elements of controls and interface, such as color picker, color button, progress bar and line chart are presented.

In the previous chapters of the eighth part of the series, our library has been reinforced by several classes for developing mouse pointers, calendars and tree views. The current article deals with the file navigator control that can also be used as part of an MQL application graphical interface.

The previous chapter of part VIII on graphical interfaces has focused on the elements of static and drop-down calendar. The second chapter will be dedicated to an equally complex element — a tree view, that is included in every complete library used for creating graphical interfaces. A tree view implemented in this article contains multiple flexible settings and modes, thus allowing to adjust this element of control to your needs.

In the part VIII of the series of articles dedicated to creating graphical interfaces in MetaTrader, we will consider complex composite controls like calendars, tree view, and file navigator. Due to the large amount of information, there are separate articles written for every subject. The first chapter of this part describes the calendar control and its expanded version — a drop down calendar.

The first chapter of seventh part introduced three classes of controls for creating tables: text label table (CLabelsTable), edit box table (CTable) and rendered table (CCanvasTable). In this article (chapter two) we are going to consider the Tabs control.

The article provides the results of testing a simple trading strategy in three modes: "1 minute OHLC", "Every tick" and "Every tick based on real ticks" using actual historical data.

The seventh part of the series on MetaTrader graphical interfaces deals with three table types: text label, edit box and rendered one. Another important and frequently used controls are tabs allowing you to show/hide groups of other controls and develop space effective interfaces in your MQL applications.

Before any product is published in the Market, it must undergo compulsory preliminary checks in order to ensure a uniform quality standard. This article considers the most frequent errors made by developers in their technical indicators and trading robots. An also shows how to self-test a product before sending it to the Market.

How to make the testing process more visual? The answer is simple: you need to use one or more indicators in the Strategy Tester, including a tick indicator, an indicator of balance and equity, an indicator of drawdown and deposit load. This solution will help you visually track the nature of ticks, balance and equity changes, as well as drawdown and deposit load.

This part of the article describes the possibilities of the CStrategy engine integration with the signal modules included into the standard library in MetaTrader. The article describes how to work with signals, as well as how to create custom strategies on their basis.

Sockets… What in our IT world could possibly exist without them? Dating back to 1982, and hardly changed up to the present time, they smoothly work for us every second. This is the foundation of network, the nerve endings of the Matrix we all live in.

A regular expression is a special language for handling texts by applying a specified rule, also called a regex or regexp for short. In this article, we are going to show how to handle a trade report with the RegularExpressions library for MQL5, and will also demonstrate the optimization results after using it.

Many traders on Moscow Exchange would like to automate their trading algorithms, but they do not know where to start. The MQL5 language offers a huge range of trading functions, and it additionally provides ready classes that help users to make their first steps in algo trading.

The number of trading robots used on the currency markets has significantly increased recently. They employ various concepts and strategies, however, none of them has yet succeeded to create a win-win sample of artificial intelligence. Therefore, many traders remain committed to manual trading. But even for such specialists, robotic assistants or, so called, trading panels, are created. This article is yet another example of creating a trading panel from scratch.

The sixth part of the article about the universal Expert Advisor describes the use of the trailing stop feature. The article will guide you through how to create a custom trailing stop module using unified rules, as well as how to add it to the trading engine so that it would automatically manage positions.

In the previous article, we have enriched our library with four controls frequently used in graphical interfaces: checkbox, edit, edit with checkbox and check combobox. The second chapter of the sixth part will be dedicated to the slider and the dual slider controls.

This article is the beginning of the sixth part of the series dedicated to the development of the library for creating graphical interfaces in the MetaTrader terminals. In the first chapter, we are going to discuss the checkbox control, the edit control and their mixed types.

This article provides further description of the CStrategy trading engine. By popular demand of users, we have added pending order support functions to the trading engine. Also, the latest version of the MetaTrader 5 now supports accounts with the hedging option. The same support has been added to CStrategy. The article provides a detailed description of algorithms for the use of pending orders, as well as of CStrategy operation principles on accounts with the hedging option enabled.

Through offline charts, programming in MQL4, and reasonable willingness, you can get a variety of chart types: "Point & Figure", "Renko", "Kagi", "Range bars", equivolume charts, etc. In this article, we will show how this can be achieved without using DLL, and therefore such "two-for-one" indicators can be published and purchased from the Market.

In the first two chapters of the fifth part of the series, we developed classes for creating a scrollbar and a view list. In this chapter, we will speak about creating a class for the combobox control. This is also a compound control containing, among others, elements considered in the previous chapters of the fifth part.

This article describes techniques of operating with Kohonen maps. The subject will be of interest to both market researchers with basic level of programing in MQL4 and MQL5 and experienced programmers that face difficulties with connecting Kohonen maps to their projects.

In the last part of the series of articles about the CStrategy trading engine, we will consider simultaneous operation of multiple trading algorithms, will learn to load strategies from XML files, and will present a simple panel for selecting Expert Advisors from a single executable module, and managing their trading modes.

In the previous chapter, we wrote classes for creating vertical and horizontal scrollbars. In this chapter, we will implement them. We will write a class for creating the list view element, a compound part of which will be a vertical scrollbar.

We are still discussing the development of the library for creating graphical interfaces in the MetaTrader environment. In the first article of the fifth part of the series, we will write classes for creating vertical and horizontal scrollbars.

The article deals with examples of applying fuzzy set theory in trading by means of MQL4. The use of FuzzyNet library for MQL4 in the development of an indicator and an Expert Advisor is described as well.