MQL4 and MQL5 Programming Articles

The article describes the way to create a custom strategy tester and a custom analyzer of the optimization passes. After reading it, you will understand how the math calculations mode and the mechanism of so-called frames work, how to prepare and load custom data for calculations and use effective algorithms for their compression. This article will also be interesting to those interested in ways of storing custom information within an expert.

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.

Random Forest (RF) with the use of bagging is one of the most powerful machine learning methods, which is slightly inferior to gradient boosting. This article attempts to develop a self-learning trading system that makes decisions based on the experience gained from interaction with the market.

This article will teach you how to receive trade signals that are necessary for a trade system to work. The examples of forming 20 trade signals are given here as separate custom functions that can be used while developing Expert Advisors. For your convenience, all the functions used in the article are combined in a single mqh include file that can be easily connected to a future Expert Advisor.

This article covers the details of interaction between MetaTrader 5 and MatLab mathematical package. It shows the mechanism of data conversion, the process of developing a universal library to interact with MatLab desktop. It also covers the use of DLL generated by MatLab environment. This article is intended for experienced readers, who know C++ and MQL5.

There are numerous trading strategies out there. Some of them look for a trend, while others define ranges of price fluctuations to trade within them. Is it possible to combine these two approaches to increase profitability?

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.

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.

The article provides an example of an MQL application with its graphical interface featuring multi-symbol balance and deposit drawdown graphs based on the last test results.

Forecasting financial time-series is a required element of any investing activity. The concept of investing itself - put up money now to gain profits in future - is based on the concept of predicting the future. Therefore, forecasting financial time-series underlies the activities of the whole investing industry - all organized exchanges and other securities trading systems.

This article draws your attention to the brief review of the method and program code of the mechanical trading system based on the technique proposed by Stanislav Chuvashov. The market analysis considered in the article has something in common with Thomas DeMark's approach to drawing trend lines for the last closest time interval, fractals being the reference points in the construction of trend lines.

In the previous article, we have created the classes of pending request objects corresponding to the general concept of library objects. This time, we are going to deal with the class allowing the management of pending request objects.

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.

The article considers the development of indicator buffer object classes as descendants of the abstract buffer object simplifying declaration and working with indicator buffers, while creating custom indicator programs based on DoEasy library.

A big program starts with a small file, which then grows in size as you keep adding more functions and objects. Most robot developers utilize include files to handle this problem. However, there is a better solution: start developing any trading application in a project. There are so many reasons to do so.

We now know that probability density function (PDF) of a market cycle does not remind a Gaussian but rather a PDF of a sine wave and most of the indicators assume that the market cycle PDF is Gaussian we need a way to "correct" that. The solution is to use Fisher Transform. The Fisher transform changes PDF of any waveform to approximately Gaussian. This article describes the mathematics behind the Fisher Transform and the Inverse Fisher Transform and their application to trading. A proprietary trading signal module based on the Inverse Fisher Transform is presented and evaluated.

The graphical method proposed by Bill Wolfe allows to detect a pattern, based on which a moment and direction for entry can be found, and also it helps forecast the target which the price should reach, as well as the time of target reaching. The article describes how to create an indicator based on a ZigZag, that would search for Wolfe Waves, and a simple Expert Advisor trading based on this indicator.

The article deals with the popular trading method - triangular arbitrage. Here we analyze the topic in as much detail as possible, consider the positive and negative aspects of the strategy and develop the ready-made Expert Advisor code.

Traders often look for trend reversal points since the price has the greatest potential for movement at the very beginning of a newly formed trend. Consequently, various reversal patterns are considered in the technical analysis. The Double top/bottom is one of the most well-known and frequently used ones. The article proposes the method of the pattern programmatic detection. It also tests the pattern's profitability on history data.

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.

Many developers face the same problem - how to get to the trading terminal sandbox without using unsafe DLLs. One of the easiest and safest method is to use standard Named Pipes that work as normal file operations. They allow you to organize interprocessor client-server communication between programs. Take a look at practical examples in C++ and MQL5 that include server, client, data exchange between them and performance benchmark.

Profitability of trading systems is defined not only by logic and precision of analyzing the financial instrument dynamics, but also by the quality of the performance algorithm of this logic. False trigger is typical for low quality performance of the main logic of a trading robot. Ways of solving the specified problem are considered in this article.

In this article, we test the statistical properties of the Labouchere money management system. It is considered to be a less aggressive kind of Martingale, since bets are not doubled, but are raised by a certain amount instead.

The article considers an example of applying the fuzzy logic to build a simple trading system, using the Fuzzy library. Variants for improving the system by combining fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms and neural networks are proposed.

The article considers all kinds of divergence: simple, hidden, extended, triple, quadruple, convergence, as well as divergences of A, B and C classes. A universal indicator for their search and display on the chart is developed.

In this article, we continue to consider writing the code to trading systems described in a book by Linda B. Raschke and Laurence A. Connors “Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies”. This time we study Momentum Pinball system: there is described creation of two indicators, trade robot and signal block on it.

At present, technical analysis along with the fundamental one is the most important method to analyze stock market. Being one of the predicting methods of stock market pricing dynamics, the technical analysis has a large amount of disadvantages that cast some doubt on its practical applicability.

This paper proposes a new conception to describe the window interface of MQL programs, using the structures of MQL. Special classes transform the viewable MQL markup into the GUI elements and allow manage them, set up their properties, and process the events in a unified manner. It also provides some examples of using the markup for the dialogs and elements of a standard library.

Have you ever felt the need to add a graphical panel to your indicator or Expert Advisor for greater speed and convenience? In this article, you will find out how to implement the dialog panel with the input parameters into your MQL4/MQL5 program step by step.

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.

This article explains the step by step process of identifying and resolving code errors as well as the steps in testing and optimizing of the Expert Advisor input parameters. You will learn how to use Strategy Tester of MetaTrader 5 client terminal to find the best symbol and set of input parameters for your Expert Advisor.

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.

If you have newly switched to MQL5, then this article will be useful. First, the access to the indicator data and series is done in the usual MQL4 style. Second, this entire simplicity is implemented in MQL5. All functions are as clear as possible and perfectly suited for step-by-step debugging.

This sequence of articles is intended for traders, who know nothing about programming, but have a desire to learn MQL4 language as quick as possible with minimal time and effort inputs. If you are afraid of such phrases as "object orientation" or "three dimensional arrays", this article is what you need. The lessons are designed for the maximally quick result. Moreover, the information is delivered in a comprehensible manner. We shall not go too deep into the theory, but you will gain the practical benefit already from the first lesson.

The article considers the possibility to apply Bayesian optimization to hyperparameters of deep neural networks, obtained by various training variants. The classification quality of a DNN with the optimal hyperparameters in different training variants is compared. Depth of effectiveness of the DNN optimal hyperparameters has been checked in forward tests. The possible directions for improving the classification quality have been determined.

The article deals with detecting and indicating Support/Resistance Levels in the MetaTrader 4 program. The convenient and universal indicator is based on a simple algorithm. The article also tackles such a useful topic as creation of a simple indicator that can display results from different timeframes in one workspace.

The article deals with various ways of how to control open positions and pending orders. It is devoted to simplifying of writing Expert Advisors.