MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

The Strategy Tester in the MetaTrader 5 trading platform provides only two optimization options: complete search of parameters and genetic algorithm. This article proposes a new method for optimizing trading strategies — Simulated annealing. The method's algorithm, its implementation and integration into any Expert Advisor are considered. The developed algorithm is tested on the Moving Average EA.

In this article we will create the first and main element of the graphical interface - a form for controls. Multiple controls can be attached to this form anywhere and in any combination.

Efficiency of any trading robot depends on the correct selection of its parameters (optimization). However, parameters that are considered optimal for one time interval may not retain their effectiveness in another period of trading history. Besides, EAs showing profit during tests turn out to be loss-making in real time. The issue of continuous optimization comes to the fore here. When facing plenty of routine work, humans always look for ways to automate it. In this article, I propose a non-standard approach to solving this issue.

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.

In this article we are going to analyze the NRTR indicator and create a trading system based on this indicator. We are going to develop a module of trading signals that can be used in creating strategies based on a combination of NRTR with additional trend confirmation indicators.

How to be aware of what happens in the terminal and on your account without permanent looking at the monitor. System events; custom events; wave and executable files; electronic messages; setting up SMTP server access; publications; setting up FTP server access.

In this article we will perform an experiment: we will color optimization results. The color is determined by three parameters: the levels of red, green and blue (RGB). There are other color coding methods, which also use three parameters. Thus, three testing parameters can be converted to one color, which visually represents the values. Read this article to find out if such a representation can be useful.

Let us consider the button control. We will discuss examples of several classes for creating a simple button, buttons with extended functionality (icon button and split button) and interconnected buttons (button groups and radio button). Added to that, we will introduce some additions to existing classes for controls to broaden their capability.

In the article, we will apply Reinforcement learning to develop self-learning Expert Advisors. In the previous article, we considered the Random Decision Forest algorithm and wrote a simple self-learning EA based on Reinforcement learning. The main advantages of such an approach (trading algorithm development simplicity and high "training" speed) were outlined. Reinforcement learning (RL) is easily incorporated into any trading EA and speeds up its optimization.

The MQL5.com website brings together traders from all over the world. Users publish articles, share free codes, sell products in the Market, perform Freelance orders and copy trading signals. You can communicate with them on the Forum, in trader chats and in MetaTrader channels.

Today we'll see how to create an Expert Advisor that simply and safely works in automatic mode.

The article gives a description of ways of use of the multiple regression analysis for development of trading systems. It demonstrates the use of the regression analysis for strategy search automation. A regression equation generated and integrated in an EA without requiring high proficiency in programming is given as an example.

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.

Mini Market Emulator is an indicator designed for partial emulation of work in the terminal. Presumably, it can be used to test "manual" strategies of market analysis and trading.

The article dwells on gaps — significant differences between a close price of a previous timeframe and an open price of the next one, as well as on forecasting a daily bar direction. Applying the GetOpenFileName function by the system DLL is considered as well.

In this article, we will consider the main aspects of integration of neural networks and the trading terminal, with the purpose of creating a fully featured trading robot.

This article describes the MQL5 Standard Library extension, which allows to create Expert Advisors, place orders, Stop Losses and Take Profits using the MQL5 Wizard by the prices received from included modules. This approach does not apply any additional restrictions on the number of modules and does not cause conflicts in their joint work.

The article provides the description of a simple HTML code parsing library using third-party components. In particular, it covers the possibilities of accessing data which cannot be retrieved using GET and POST requests. We will select a website with not too large pages and will try to obtain interesting data from this site.

Many researchers do not pay enough attention to determining the price behavior. At the same time, complex methods are used, which very often are simply “black boxes”, such as machine learning or neural networks. The most important question arising in that case is what data to submit for training a particular model.

This is the first article in a series, in which I am going to describe a toolkit which enables manual application of chart graphics by utilizing keyboard shortcuts. It is very convenient: you press one key and a trendline appears, you press another key — this will create a Fibonacci fan with the necessary parameters. It will also be possible to switch timeframes, to rearrange layers or to delete all objects from the chart.

After we send a trading order to the server, we need to check the error codes or the absence of errors. In this article, we will consider handling errors returned by the trade server and prepare for creating pending trading requests.

The Expert Advisor plots the channel lines. The upper and lower channel lines act as support and resistance levels. The Expert Advisor marks datum points, provides sound notification every time the price reaches or crosses the channel lines and draws the relevant marks. Upon fractal formation, the corresponding arrows appear on the last bars. Line breakouts may suggest the possibility of a growing trend. The Expert Advisor is extensively commented throughout.

The concept of diversification of assets on financial markets is quiet old, and has always attracted beginner traders. In this article, the author proposes a maximally simple approach to a construction of a multi-currency Expert Advisor, for an initial introduction to this direction of trading strategies.

This article presents an adaptive parallel channel detection and breakout system in MQL5. It explains how swing points are identified, channels are constructed and dynamically recalculated, and breakouts are confirmed and visualized with persistent signals. The framework integrates trendline geometry, ATR-based filtering, and retest validation to provide reliable, real-time price action analysis for professional charting and trading decisions.

In the previous article, we created the application framework, which we will use as the basis for all further work. In this part, we will proceed with the development: we will create the visual part of the application and will configure basic interaction of interface elements.

This is the must read article for anyone wanting to improve their programming career. This article series is aimed at making you the best programmer you can possibly be, no matter how experienced you are. The discussed ideas work for MQL5 programming newbies as well as professionals.

The article considers real-time update of timeseries data and sending messages about the "New bar" event to the control program chart from all timeseries of all symbols for the ability to handle these events in custom programs. The "New tick" class is used to determine the need to update timeseries for the non-current chart symbol and periods.

This article describes the construction of the custom optimization criterion R-squared. This criterion can be used to estimate the quality of a strategy's balance curve and to select the most smoothly growing and stable strategies. The work discusses the principles of its construction and statistical methods used in estimation of properties and quality of this metric.

In this article, we build a Liquidity Sweep on Break of Structure (BoS) system in MQL5 that detects swing highs/lows over a user-defined length, labels them as HH/HL/LH/LL to identify BOS (HH in uptrend or LL in downtrend), and spots liquidity sweeps when price wicks beyond the swing but closes back inside on a bullish/bearish candle.

Is it allowed to trade this symbol on Monday? Is there enough money to open position? How big is the loss if Stop Loss triggers? How to limit the number of pending orders? Was the trade operation executed at the current bar or at the previous one? If a trade robot cannot perform this kind of verifications, then any trade strategy can turn into a losing one. This article shows the examples of verifications that are useful in any Expert Advisor.

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.

It is possible to start making money on MQL5.com right now without having to be a seller of Market applications or a profitable signals provider. Select the products you like and post links to them on various web resources. Attract potential customers and the profit is yours!

The article considers one of the variants for Expert Advisor practical realization to trade DiNapoli levels using MQL5 standard tools. Its performance is tested and conclusions are made.

In this article, we will learn how to create an indicator that detects, draws, and alerts on the mitigation of order blocks. We will also take a detailed look at how to identify these blocks on the chart, set accurate alerts, and visualize their position using rectangles to better understand the price action. This indicator will serve as a key tool for traders who follow the Smart Money Concepts and the Inner Circle Trader methodology.

In this article, we will continue expanding the functionality of the utility. This time, we will add the ability to display data that simplifies our trading. In particular, we are going to add High and Low prices of the previous day, round levels, High and Low prices of the year, session start time, etc.