MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

For a long time multi-currency analysis and multi-currency trading has been of interest to people. The opportunity to implement a full fledged multi-currency regime became possible only with the public release of MetaTrader 5 and the MQL5 programming language. In this article we propose a way to analyze and process all incoming ticks for several symbols. As an illustration, let's consider a multi-currency RSI indicator of the USDx dollar index.

In this article, we will create an Expert Advisor for automated entry lot calculation based on risk values. Also the Expert Advisor will be able to automatically place Take Profit with the select ratio to Stop Loss. That is, it can calculate Take Profit based on any selected ratio, such as 3 to 1, 4 to 1 or any other selected value.

There are 6 drawing styles in MQL4 and 18 drawing styles in MQL5. Therefore, it may be worth writing an article to introduce MQL5's drawing styles. In this article, we will consider the details of drawing styles in MQL5. In addition, we will create an indicator to demonstrate how to use these drawing styles, and refine the plotting.

This class library can be added to an MetaTrader 5 Expert Advisor to enable it to be written with an order-centric approach broadly similar to MetaTrader 4, in comparison to the position-based approach of MetaTrader 5. It does this by keeping track of virtual orders at the MetaTrader 5 client terminal, while maintaining a protective broker stop for each position for disaster protection.

Any Expert Advisor developer, regardless of programming skills, is daily confronted with the same trading tasks and algorithmic problems, which should be solved to organize a reliable trading process. The article describes the possibilities of the CStrategy trading engine that can undertake the solution of these tasks and provide a user with convenient mechanism for describing a custom trading idea.

Time has been a great value throughout the history of mankind, and we strive not to waste it unnecessarily. This article will tell you how to accelerate the work of your Expert Advisor if your computer has a multi-core processor. Moreover, the implementation of the proposed method does not require the knowledge of any other languages besides MQL5.

In this article, we will consider popular candlestick patterns and will try to find out if they are still relevant and effective in today's markets. Candlestick analysis appeared more than 20 years ago and has since become quite popular. Many traders consider Japanese candlesticks the most convenient and easily understandable asset price visualization form.

In this article, we will start the development of the new library section - trading classes. Besides, we will consider the development of a unified base trading object for MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 platforms. When sending a request to the server, such a trading object implies that verified and correct trading request parameters are passed to it.

Want to organize export of quotes from MetaTrader 5 to your own application? The MQL5-DLL junction allows to create such solutions! This article will show you one of the ways to export quotes from MetaTrader 5 to applications written in .NET. For me it was more interesting, rational and easy to implement export of quotes using this very platform. Unfortunately, version 5 still does not support .NET, so like in old days we will use win32 dll with .NET support as an interlayer.

The article describes an attempt to combine theory with practice in the algorithmic trading field. Most of discussions concerning the creation of Trading Systems is connected with the use of historic bars and various indicators applied thereon. This is the most well covered field and thus we will not consider it. Bars represent a very artificial entity; therefore we will work with something closer to proto-data, namely the price ticks.

MQL5 gave a mass of innovations, including work with events of various types (timer events, trade events, custom events, etc.). Ability to handle events allows you to create completely new type of programs for automatic and semi-automatic trading. In this article we will consider trade events and write some code for the OnTrade() function, that will process the Trade event.

The article details TD points and TD lines discovered by Thomas DeMark. Their practical implementation is revealed. In addition to that, a process of writing three indicators and two Expert Advisors using the concepts of Thomas DeMark is demonstrated.

This article's objective is to study profitability of algorithms with different entries into trades and exits using trailing stop. Entry types to be used are random entry and reverse entry. Stop orders to be used are trailing stop and trailing take. The article demonstrates money-making algorithms with a profitability of about 30% per annum.

This article focuses on general issues linked to handling software errors. Furthermore, the logging term is brought up and the examples of logging implementation with MQL5 tools are shown.

Upgrade your market reading with the Candle-Range Theory suite for MetaTrader 5, a fully MQL5-native solution that converts raw price bars into real-time volatility intelligence. The lightweight CRangePattern library benchmarks each candle’s true range against an adaptive ATR and classifies it the instant it closes; the CRT Indicator then projects those classifications on your chart as crisp, color-coded rectangles and arrows that reveal tightening consolidations, explosive breakouts, and full-range engulfment the moment they occur.

The article presents an extended study of seasonal characteristics: autocorrelation heat maps and scatter plots. The purpose of the article is to show that "market memory" is of seasonal nature, which is expressed through maximized correlation of increments of arbitrary order.

The Multiline Text box control is discussed. Unlike the graphical objects of the OBJ_EDIT type, the presented version will not have restrictions on the number of input characters. It also adds the mode for turning the text box into a simple text editor, where the cursor can be moved using the mouse or keys.

In this article, we demonstrate features of botbrains.app - a no-code platform for trading robots development. To create a trading robot you don't need to write any code - just drag and drop the necessary blocks onto the scheme, set their parameters, and establish connections between them.

By default, all objects in MQL5 are passed by reference, but there is a possibility to use the object pointers. However it's necessary to perform the pointer checking, because the object may be not initialized. In this case, the MQL5 program will be terminated with critical error and unloaded. The objects, created automatically, doesn't cause such an error, so in this sence, they are quite safe. In this article, we will try to understand the difference between the object reference and object pointer, and consider how to write secure code, that uses the pointers.

Starting with this article, we are going to develop a functionality allowing users to trade using pending requests under certain conditions, for example, when reaching a certain time limit, exceeding a specified profit or closing a position by stop loss.

Following up our previous article on the currency baskets trading principles, here we are going to analyze the patterns traders can detect. We will also consider the advantages and the drawbacks of each pattern and provide some recommendations on their use. The indicators based on Williams' oscillator will be used as analysis tools.

The article considers working with account events for tracking important changes in account properties affecting the automated trading. We have already implemented some functionality for tracking account events in the previous article when developing the account object collection.

The article compares the classic MQL5 access to indicators with alternative MQL4-style methods. Several varieties of MQL4-style access to indicators are considered: with and without the indicator handles caching. Considering the indicator handles inside the MQL5 core is analyzed as well.

This article describes a new approach to hedging of positions and draws the line in the debates between users of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 about this matter. The algorithms making such hedging reliable are described in layman's terms and illustrated with simple charts and diagrams. This article is dedicated to the new panel HedgeTerminal, which is essentially a fully featured trading terminal within MetaTrader 5. Using HedgeTerminal and the virtualization of the trade it offers, positions can be managed in the way similar to MetaTrader 4.

In this article, we continue studying the use of CAppDialog. Now we will learn how to set color for the background, borders and header of the dialog box. Also, this article provides a step-by-step description of how to add transparency for an application window when dragging it within the chart. We will consider how to create child classes of CAppDialog or CWndClient and analyze new specifics of working with controls. Finally, we will review new Projects from a new perspective.

This article deals with the theory and practical application of the algorithm for forecasting time series, based on support-vector method. It also proposes its implementation in MQL and provides test indicators and Expert Advisors. This technology has not been implemented in MQL yet. But first, we have to get to know math for it.

This article discusses the implementation of various methods of time filtering a cross-platform expert advisor. The time filter classes are responsible for checking whether or not a given time falls under a certain time configuration setting.

A Twitter client implemented as MQL class to allow you to send tweets with photos. All you need is to include a single self contained include file and off you go to tweet all your wonderful charts and signals.

In this article, we create an Inverse Fair Value Gap (IFVG) detection system in MQL5 that identifies bullish/bearish FVGs on recent bars with minimum gap size filtering, tracks their states as normal/mitigated/inverted based on price interactions (mitigation on far-side breaks, retracement on re-entry, inversion on close beyond far side from inside), and ignores overlaps while limiting tracked FVGs.

This article explores how to build an Opening Range Breakout (ORB) Expert Advisor in MQL5. It explains how the EA identifies breakouts from the market’s initial range and opens trades accordingly. You’ll also learn how to control the number of positions opened and set a specific cutoff time to stop trading automatically.

In this note we will consider a typical programming errors, that occurs while working with double numbers in MQL4 programs.

In this little video course you will learn how to download, install and setup MetaTrader 5 for Automated Trading. You will also learn how to adjust the chart settings and the options for automated trading. You will do your first backtest and by the end of this course you will know how to import an Expert Advisor that can automatically trade 24/7 while you don't have to sit in front of your screen.

From August 1, 2014, MetaTrader 4 desktop terminals older than build 600 will no longer be supported. However, many traders still work with outdated versions and are unaware of the updated platform's features. We have put a lot of effort into development and would like to move on with traders and abandon the older builds. In this article, we will describe the advantages of the new MetaTrader 4.

The article discusses the possibility of plotting statistical distribution histograms of market conditions with the help of the graphical memory meaning no indicator buffers and arrays are applied. Sample histograms are described in details and the "hidden" functionality of MQL5 graphical objects is shown.