MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

The article is intended to get its readers acquainted with the Box-Cox transformation. The issues concerning its usage are addressed and some examples are given allowing to evaluate the transformation efficiency with random sequences and real quotes.

Determing the broker offset and GMT automatically. Instead of asking the support of your broker, from whom you will probably receive an insufficient answer (who would be willing to explain a missing hour), we simply look ourselves how they time their prices in the weeks of the time changes — but not cumbersome by hand, we let a program do it — why do we have a PC after all.

The article considers new types of indicators with more complex structural implementation. It also describes the development of pseudo-3D indicator types and dynamic infographics.

Learn how to automate Larry Williams market structure concepts in MQL5 by building a complete Expert Advisor that reads swing points, generates trade signals, manages risk, and applies a dynamic trailing stop strategy.

The article reveals how the "Rope" indicator is created based on "The Small Encyclopedia of Trader" by Erik L. Nayman. This indicator shows the direction of the trend using the calculated values of bulls and bears over a specified period of time. The article also contains principles of creating and calculating indicators along with the examples of codes. Other subjects covered include building an Expert Advisor based on the indicator, and the optimization of external parameters.

In this part, we expand the trading signal searching and editing system, as well as introduce the possibility to use custom indicators and add program localization. We have previously created a basic system for searching signals, but it was based on a small set of indicators and a simple set of search rules.

We continue the development of the library functionality featuring trading using pending requests. We have already implemented sending conditional trading requests for opening positions and placing pending orders. In the current article, we will implement conditional position closure – full, partial and closing by an opposite position.

Studies related to search for the fractal behavior of financial data suggest that behind the seemingly chaotic behavior of economic time series there are hidden stable mechanisms of participants' collective behavior. These mechanisms can lead to the emergence of price dynamics on the exchange, which can define and describe specific properties of price series. When applied to trading, one could benefit from the indicators which can efficiently and reliably estimate the fractal parameters in the scale and time frame, which are relevant in practice.

The article will help newbies in trading to create flexibly adjustable Expert Advisors.

Different situations happen in trader’s life. Often, the history of successful trades allows us to restore a strategy, while looking at a loss history we try to develop and improve it. In both cases, we compare trades with known indicators. This article suggests methods of batch comparison of trades with a number of indicators.

This article discusses how custom stop levels can be set up in a cross-platform expert advisor. It also discusses a closely-related method by which the evolution of a stop level over time can be defined.

In previous articles, we used stochastic gradient descent to train a neural network using the same learning rate for all neurons within the network. In this article, I propose to look towards adaptive learning methods which enable changing of the learning rate for each neuron. We will also consider the pros and cons of this approach.

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 article offers a simple emulator of the MetaTrader 5 trading environment for MetaTrader 4. The emulator implements migration and adjustment of trade classes of the Standard Library. As a result, Expert Advisors generated in the MetaTrader 5 Wizard can be compiled and executed in MetaTrader 4 without changes.

The Accumulation/Distribution (A/D) Indicator has one interesting feature - a breakout of the trend line plotted in this indicator chart suggests, with a certain degree of probability, a forthcoming breakout of the trend line in the price chart. This article will be useful and interesting for those who are new to programming in MQL4. Having this in view, I have tried to present the information in an easy to grasp manner and use the simplest code structures.

This article presents a method of programming the equidistant channel system. Certain details of building such channels are being considered here. Channel typification is provided, and a universal type of moving channels' method is suggested. Object-oriented programming (OOP) is used for code implementation.

The ring buffer is the simplest and the most efficient way to arrange data when performing calculations in a sliding window. The article describes the algorithm and shows how it simplifies calculations in a sliding window and makes them more efficient.

The article is a follow-up of the previous publication "Developing graphical interfaces for Expert Advisors and indicators based on .Net Framework and C#". It introduces new graphical elements for creating graphical interfaces.

This is the next article within the series, in which I show how I created a convenient library for manual application of chart graphics by utilizing keyboard shortcuts. The tools used include straight lines and their combinations. In this part, we will view how the drawing tools are applied using the functions described in the first part. The library can be connected to any Expert Advisor or indicator which will greatly simplify the charting tasks. This solution DOES NOT use external dlls, while all the commands are implemented using built-in MQL tools.

In this second article, we will continue to study neural networks and will consider an example of using our created CNet class in Expert Advisors. We will work with two neural network models, which show similar results both in terms of training time and prediction accuracy.

We continue the series of articles on MQL5 programming. This time we will see how to get results of each optimization pass right during the Expert Advisor parameter optimization. The implementation will be done so as to ensure that if the conditions specified in the external parameters are met, the corresponding pass values will be written to a file. In addition to test values, we will also save the parameters that brought about such results.

Today it is difficult to find a computer that does not have an installed web-browser. For a long time browsers have been evolving and improving. This article discusses the simple and safe way to create of charts and diagrams, based on the the information, obtained from MetaTrader 5 client terminal for displaying them in the browser.

This article will consider new controls: Text Edit box, Picture Slider, as well as additional simple controls: Text label and Picture. The library continues to grow, and in addition to introduction of new controls, the previously created ones are also being improved.

In this article, we will continue the development of trading requests, implement placing pending orders and eliminate detected shortcomings of the trading class operation.

The project involves using Python for deep learning-based forecasting in financial markets. We will explore the intricacies of testing the model's performance using key metrics such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), and R-squared (R2) and we will learn how to wrap everything into an executable. We will also make a ONNX model file with its EA.

This article contains a detailed description of the Martingale system, as well as precise mathematical calculations, necessary for answering the question: "Is it reasonable to use Martingale?".

We continue studying the world of neural networks. In this article, we will consider another type of neural networks, recurrent networks. This type is proposed for use with time series, which are represented in the MetaTrader 5 trading platform by price charts.

This article explores the effectiveness of complex trading systems by analyzing the efficiency of its individual components. Any analysis, whether it is graphic, based on indicators, or any other, is one of the key components of successful trading in financial markets. This article is to some extent a research of few simple and independent trading systems for analyzing their effectiveness and usefulness of the joint application.

Not all traders are programmers. And not all of the programmers are really good ones. So, what should be done, if you need to automate your system by do not have time and desire to study MQL4?

In continuation of our work on the Expert Advisor from the previous article of the series called "MQL5 Cookbook: Analyzing Position Properties in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester", we will enhance it with a whole lot of useful functions, as well as improve and optimize the existing ones. The Expert Advisor will this time have external parameters that can be optimized in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester and will in some ways resemble a simple trading system.

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. It is a continuation of the first part: "Bi-Directional Trading and Hedging of Positions in MetaTrader 5 Using the HedgeTerminal Panel, Part 1". In the second part, we discuss integration of custom Expert Advisors with HedgeTerminalAPI, which is a special visualization library designed for bi-directional trading in a comfortable software environment providing tools for convenient position management.

The article deals with the development of the timeseries collection of specified timeframes for all symbols used in the program. We are going to develop the timeseries collection, the methods of setting collection's timeseries parameters and the initial filling of developed timeseries with historical data.

Surely, a fey thought to trade closely to extremums visited every apprentice trader when he/she saw "enigmatic" polyline for the first time. It's so simple, indeed. Here is the maximum. And there is the minimum. A beautiful picture on the history. And what is in practice? A ray is drawn. It should seem, that is it, the peak! It is time to sell. And now we go down. But hell no! The price is treacherously moving upwards. Haw! It's a trifle, not an indicator. And you throw it out!

Some traders execute all their trades automatically, and some mix automatic and manual trades based on the output of several indicators. Being a member of the latter group I needed an interactive tool to asses dynamically risk and reward price levels directly from the chart. This article will present a way to implement an interactive semi-automatic Expert Advisor with predefined equity risk and R/R ratio. The Expert Advisor risk, R/R and lot size parameters can be changed during runtime on the EA panel.

The article describes the method of fast visual testing of trading ideas. The method is based on the combination of a price chart, a signal indicator and a balance calculation indicator. I would like to share my method of searching for trading ideas, as well as the method I use for fast testing of these ideas.