MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

MetaTrader 5 allows us to simulate automatic trading, within an embedded strategy tester, by using Expert Advisors and the MQL5 language. This type of simulation is called testing of Expert Advisors, and can be implemented using multithreaded optimization, as well as simultaneously on a number of instruments. In order to provide a thorough testing, a generation of ticks based on the available minute history, needs to be performed. This article provides a detailed description of the algorithm, by which the ticks are generated for the historical testing in the MetaTrader 5 client terminal.

The article provides an example of how to implement an indicator for drawing support and resistance lines based on formalized conditions. In addition to having a ready-to-use indicator, you will see how simple the indicator creation process is. You will also learn how to formulate conditions for drawing any desired line by changing the indicator code.

Protection of intellectual property is still a big problem. This article describes the basic principles of MQL4-programs protection. Using these principles you can ensure that results of your developments are not stolen by a thief, or at least to complicate his "work" so much that he will just refuse to do it.

The purpose of this article is to create the most simple trading strategy that implements the "All or Nothing" gaming principle. We don't want to create a profitable Expert Advisor - the goal is to increase the initial deposit several times with the highest possible probability. Is it possible to hit the jackpot on ForEx or lose everything without knowing anything about technical analysis and without using any indicators?

It has been over a year since MQL5 started providing native support for OpenCL. However not many users have seen the true value of using parallel computing in their Expert Advisors, indicators or scripts. This article serves to help you install and set up OpenCL on your computer so that you can try to use this technology in the MetaTrader 5 trading terminal.

The article provides a brief overview of ten trend following strategies, as well as their testing results and comparative analysis. Based on the obtained results, we draw a general conclusion about the appropriateness, advantages and disadvantages of trend following trading.

Price trends form price channels that can be observed on financial symbol charts. The breakout of the current channel is one of the strong trend reversal signals. In this article, I suggest a way to automate the process of finding such signals and see if the channel breakout pattern can be used for creating a trading strategy.

This article deals with seven types of moving averages (MA) and a trading strategy to work with them. We also test and compare various MAs at a single trading strategy and evaluate the efficiency of each moving average compared to others.

Members of the official MetaTrader Freelance service have completed more than 50,000 orders as at October 2018. This is the world's largest Freelance site for MQL programmers: more than a thousand developers, dozens of new orders daily and 7 languages localization.

The article describes an example of Renko charting and its implementation in MQL5 as an indicator. Modifications of this indicator distinguish it from a classic chart. It can be constructed both in the indicator window and on the main chart. Moreover, there is the ZigZag indicator. You can find a few examples of the chart implementation.

This article covers the main principles set fourth in evolutionary algorithms, their variety and features. We will conduct an experiment with a simple Expert Advisor used as an example to show how our trading system benefits from optimization. We will consider software programs that implement genetic, evolutionary and other types of optimization, and provide examples of application when optimizing a predictor set and parameters of the trading system.

Everyone who uses trading robots or signal subscriptions sooner or later recognizes the need to rent a reliable 24/7 hosting server for their trading platform. We recommend using MetaTrader VPS for several reasons. You can conveniently pay and manage the subscription through your MQL5.community account.

Fuzzy logic expands our boundaries of mathematical logic and set theory. This article reveals the basic principles of fuzzy logic as well as describes two fuzzy inference systems using Mamdani-type and Sugeno-type models. The examples provided will describe implementation of fuzzy models based on these two systems using the FuzzyNet library for MQL5.

The largest store of ready-made applications for algo-trading now features 13,970 products. This includes 4,800 robots, 6,500 indicators, 2,400 utilities and other solutions. Almost half of the applications (6,000) are available for rent. Also, a quarter of the total number of products (3,800) can be downloaded for free.

Is it possible to develop an Expert Advisor able to optimize position open and close conditions at regular intervals according to the code commands? What happens if we implement a neural network (multilayer perceptron) in the form of a module to analyze history and provide strategy? We can make the EA optimize a neural network monthly (weekly, daily or hourly) and continue its work afterwards. Thus, we can develop a self-optimizing EA.

The article deals with the concept of night trading, as well as trading strategies and their implementation in MQL5. We perform tests and make appropriate conclusions.

This article dwells on the ways of transferring an indicator code into an Expert Advisor Code and on writing Expert Advisors with no calling to custom indicators, and with the whole program code for the calculation of necessary indicator values inside the Expert Advisor. This article gives a general scheme of an indicator structure, emulation of indicator buffers in an Expert Advisor and substitution of the function IndicatorCounted(). The article is intended for readers, already having experience of programming in MQL4 language.

This article is the beginning of another series concerning development of graphical interfaces. Currently, there is not a single code library that would allow quick and easy creation of high quality graphical interfaces within MQL applications. By that, I mean the graphical interfaces that we are used to in familiar operating systems.

Subscribers often search for an appropriate signal by analyzing the total growth on the signal provider's account, which is not a bad idea. However, it is also important to analyze potential risks of a particular trading strategy. In this article we will show a simple and efficient way to evaluate a Trading Signal based on its performance values.

In this article, I will share with you one of the most popular and commonly used indicators in the world of trading which is RSI. You will learn how to design a trading system using this indicator.

This article focuses on the object oriented approach to doing what we did in the article "Step-By-Step Guide to writing an Expert Advisor in MQL5 for Beginners" - creating a simple Expert Advisor. Most people think this is difficult, but I want to assure you that by the time you finish reading this article, you will be able to write your own Expert Advisor which is object oriented based.

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 articles describes and provides a library of functions that allows a trader to optimize his or her Expert Advisor's inputs by launching optimization directly from the EA.

In this article, I would like to give an example of what a trader's program can be like as well as what results can be achieved in 9 months, having started to learn MQL5 from scratch. This example will also show how multi-functional and informative such a program can be for a trader while taking minimum space on the price chart. And we will be able to see just how colorful, bright and intuitively clear to the user trade information panels can get. As well as many other features...

This is the third article from the series "MQL4 Language for Newbies". Now we will learn to use built-in functions and functions for working with technical indicators. The latter ones will be essential in the future development of your own Expert Advisors and indicators. Besides we will see on a simple example, how we can trace trading signals for entering the market, for you to understand, how to use indicators correctly. And at the end of the article you will learn something new and interesting about the language itself.

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.

How many cores do you have on your home computer? How many computers can you use to optimize a trading strategy? We show here how to use the MQL5 Cloud Network to accelerate calculations by receiving the computing power across the globe with the click of a mouse. The phrase "Time is money" becomes even more topical with each passing year, and we cannot afford to wait for important computations for tens of hours or even days.

In order to make profits based on high expectations, we must understand three basic principles of good trading: 1) know your risk when entering the market; 2) cut your losses early and allow your profit to run; 3) know the expectation of your system – test and adjust it regularly. This article provides a program code trailing open positions and actualizing the second golden principle, as it allows profit to run for the highest possible level.

The article discusses how to write your own class of trading signals with the implementation of signals on the crossing of the price and the moving average, and how to include it to the generator of trading strategies of the MQL5 Wizard, as well as describes the structure and format of the description of the generated class for the MQL5 Wizard.

The article is based on 'The Mathematics of Money Management' by Ralph Vince. It provides the description of empirical and parametric methods used for finding the optimal size of a trading lot. Also the article features implementation of trading modules for the MQL5 Wizard based on these methods.

For successful trading, we almost always need indicators that can separate the main price movement from noise fluctuations. In this article, we consider one of the most promising digital filters, the Kalman filter. The article provides the description of how to draw and use the filter.

The article gives a short description of ideas underlying indicator ZUP - Universal ZigZag with Pesavento Patterns. The article also describes indicators of ZigZag embedded in ZUP.

In this article, we will have a look at Merrill patterns' model and try to evaluate their current relevance. To do this, we will develop a tool to test the patterns and apply the model to various data types such as Close, High and Low prices, as well as oscillators.

This article is a continuation of previous articles on deep neural network and predictor selection. Here we will cover features of a neural network initiated by Stacked RBM, and its implementation in the "darch" package.

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.

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.

This article explains how to use the major functionalities of the MQL5 Standard Library Trade Classes in writing Expert Advisors which implements position closing and modifying, pending order placing and deletion and verifying of Margin before placing a trade. We have also demonstrated how Trade classes can be used to obtain order and deal details.

This is the fifth article from the series "MQL4 Languages for Newbies". Today we will learn to use graphical objects - a very powerful development tool that allows to widen substantially possibilities of using indicators. Besides, they can be used in scripts and Expert Advisors. We will learn to create objects, change their parameters, check errors. Of course, I cannot describe in details all objects - there are a lot of them. But you will get all necessary knowledge to be able to study them yourself. This article also contains a step-by-step guide-example of creating a complex signal indicator. At that, many parameters will be adjustable which will make it possible to change easily the appearance of the indicator.