MQL5 Programming Articles

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Study the MQL5 language for programming trading strategies in numerous published articles mostly written by you - the community members. The articles are grouped into categories to help you quicker find answers to any questions related to programming: Integration, Tester, Trading Strategies, etc.

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Interview with Egidijus Bockus (ATC 2012)
Interview with Egidijus Bockus (ATC 2012)

Interview with Egidijus Bockus (ATC 2012)

"I examined many indicators before realizing that they are not necessary for making money on Forex" - our present interviewee Egidijus Bockus (Egidijus) told us boldly. We have all reasons to take his words seriously, as his Expert Advisor occupies the third place with more than $32 000 beginning from the third week of the Automated Trading Championship 2012.
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Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 19): Creating stages implemented in Python

Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 19): Creating stages implemented in Python

So far we have considered the automation of launching sequential procedures for optimizing EAs exclusively in the standard strategy tester. But what if we would like to perform some handling of the obtained data using other means between such launches? We will attempt to add the ability to create new optimization stages performed by programs written in Python.
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Advanced Memory Management and Optimization Techniques in MQL5

Advanced Memory Management and Optimization Techniques in MQL5

Discover practical techniques to optimize memory usage in MQL5 trading systems. Learn to build efficient, stable, and fast-performing Expert Advisors and indicators. We’ll explore how memory really works in MQL5, the common traps that slow your systems down or cause them to fail, and — most importantly — how to fix them.
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Creating an MQL5-Telegram Integrated Expert Advisor (Part 4): Modularizing Code Functions for Enhanced Reusability

Creating an MQL5-Telegram Integrated Expert Advisor (Part 4): Modularizing Code Functions for Enhanced Reusability

In this article, we refactor the existing code used for sending messages and screenshots from MQL5 to Telegram by organizing it into reusable, modular functions. This will streamline the process, allowing for more efficient execution and easier code management across multiple instances.
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MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 8): Enhanced Informational Dashboard with Draggable and Minimizable Features

MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 8): Enhanced Informational Dashboard with Draggable and Minimizable Features

In this article, we develop an enhanced informational dashboard that upgrades the previous part by adding draggable and minimizable features for improved user interaction, while maintaining real-time monitoring of multi-symbol positions and account metrics.
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From Novice to Expert: Animated News Headline Using MQL5 (II)

From Novice to Expert: Animated News Headline Using MQL5 (II)

Today, we take another step forward by integrating an external news API as the source of headlines for our News Headline EA. In this phase, we’ll explore various news sources—both established and emerging—and learn how to access their APIs effectively. We'll also cover methods for parsing the retrieved data into a format optimized for display within our Expert Advisor. Join the discussion as we explore the benefits of accessing news headlines and the economic calendar directly on the chart, all within a compact, non-intrusive interface.
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Timeseries in DoEasy library (part 50): Multi-period multi-symbol standard indicators with a shift

Timeseries in DoEasy library (part 50): Multi-period multi-symbol standard indicators with a shift

In the article, let’s improve library methods for correct display of multi-symbol multi-period standard indicators, which lines are displayed on the current symbol chart with a shift set in the settings. As well, let’s put things in order in methods of work with standard indicators and remove the redundant code to the library area in the final indicator program.
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Neural Networks Made Easy (Part 94): Optimizing the Input Sequence

Neural Networks Made Easy (Part 94): Optimizing the Input Sequence

When working with time series, we always use the source data in their historical sequence. But is this the best option? There is an opinion that changing the sequence of the input data will improve the efficiency of the trained models. In this article I invite you to get acquainted with one of the methods for optimizing the input sequence.
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Data Science and Machine Learning (Part 25): Forex Timeseries Forecasting Using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)

Data Science and Machine Learning (Part 25): Forex Timeseries Forecasting Using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) excel at leveraging past information to predict future events. Their remarkable predictive capabilities have been applied across various domains with great success. In this article, we will deploy RNN models to predict trends in the forex market, demonstrating their potential to enhance forecasting accuracy in forex trading.
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Neural Networks in Trading: A Multimodal, Tool-Augmented Agent for Financial Markets (Final Part)

Neural Networks in Trading: A Multimodal, Tool-Augmented Agent for Financial Markets (Final Part)

We continue to develop the algorithms for FinAgent, a multimodal financial trading agent designed to analyze multimodal market dynamics data and historical trading patterns.
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Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 31): Python Candlestick Recognition Engine (I) — Manual Detection

Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 31): Python Candlestick Recognition Engine (I) — Manual Detection

Candlestick patterns are fundamental to price-action trading, offering valuable insights into potential market reversals or continuations. Envision a reliable tool that continuously monitors each new price bar, identifies key formations such as engulfing patterns, hammers, dojis, and stars, and promptly notifies you when a significant trading setup is detected. This is precisely the functionality we have developed. Whether you are new to trading or an experienced professional, this system provides real-time alerts for candlestick patterns, enabling you to focus on executing trades with greater confidence and efficiency. Continue reading to learn how it operates and how it can enhance your trading strategy.
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Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 2):  Analytical Comment Script

Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 2): Analytical Comment Script

Aligned with our vision of simplifying price action, we are pleased to introduce another tool that can significantly enhance your market analysis and help you make well-informed decisions. This tool displays key technical indicators such as previous day's prices, significant support and resistance levels, and trading volume, while automatically generating visual cues on the chart.
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Category Theory in MQL5 (Part 3)

Category Theory in MQL5 (Part 3)

Category Theory is a diverse and expanding branch of Mathematics which as of yet is relatively uncovered in the MQL5 community. These series of articles look to introduce and examine some of its concepts with the overall goal of establishing an open library that provides insight while hopefully furthering the use of this remarkable field in Traders' strategy development.
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DRAW_ARROW drawing type in multi-symbol multi-period indicators

DRAW_ARROW drawing type in multi-symbol multi-period indicators

In this article, we will look at drawing arrow multi-symbol multi-period indicators. We will also improve the class methods for correct display of arrows showing data from arrow indicators calculated on a symbol/period that does not correspond to the symbol/period of the current chart.
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Analyzing all price movement options on the IBM quantum computer

Analyzing all price movement options on the IBM quantum computer

We will use a quantum computer from IBM to discover all price movement options. Sounds like science fiction? Welcome to the world of quantum computing for trading!
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Benefiting from Forex market seasonality

Benefiting from Forex market seasonality

We are all familiar with the concept of seasonality, for example, we are all accustomed to rising prices for fresh vegetables in winter or rising fuel prices during severe frosts, but few people know that similar patterns exist in the Forex market.
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Adaptive Smart Money Architecture (ASMA): Merging SMC Logic With Market Sentiment for Dynamic Strategy Switching

Adaptive Smart Money Architecture (ASMA): Merging SMC Logic With Market Sentiment for Dynamic Strategy Switching

This topic explores how to build an Adaptive Smart Money Architecture (ASMA)—an intelligent Expert Advisor that merges Smart Money Concepts (Order Blocks, Break of Structure, Fair Value Gaps) with real-time market sentiment to automatically choose the best trading strategy depending on current market conditions.
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Self Optimizing Expert Advisor with MQL5 And Python (Part III): Cracking The Boom 1000 Algorithm

Self Optimizing Expert Advisor with MQL5 And Python (Part III): Cracking The Boom 1000 Algorithm

In this series of articles, we discuss how we can build Expert Advisors capable of autonomously adjusting themselves to dynamic market conditions. In today's article, we will attempt to tune a deep neural network to Deriv's synthetic markets.
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Introduction to MQL5 (Part 20): Introduction to Harmonic Patterns

Introduction to MQL5 (Part 20): Introduction to Harmonic Patterns

In this article, we explore the fundamentals of harmonic patterns, their structures, and how they are applied in trading. You’ll learn about Fibonacci retracements, extensions, and how to implement harmonic pattern detection in MQL5, setting the foundation for building advanced trading tools and Expert Advisors.
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Moving to MQL5 Algo Forge (Part 4): Working with Versions and Releases

Moving to MQL5 Algo Forge (Part 4): Working with Versions and Releases

We'll continue developing the Simple Candles and Adwizard projects, while also describing the finer aspects of using the MQL5 Algo Forge version control system and repository.
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Self Optimizing Expert Advisors in MQL5 (Part 15): Linear System Identification

Self Optimizing Expert Advisors in MQL5 (Part 15): Linear System Identification

Trading strategies may be challenging to improve because we often don’t fully understand what the strategy is doing wrong. In this discussion, we introduce linear system identification, a branch of control theory. Linear feedback systems can learn from data to identify a system’s errors and guide its behavior toward intended outcomes. While these methods may not provide fully interpretable explanations, they are far more valuable than having no control system at all. Let’s explore linear system identification and observe how it may help us as algorithmic traders to maintain control over our trading applications.
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Integrating ML models with the Strategy Tester (Part 3): Managing CSV files (II)

Integrating ML models with the Strategy Tester (Part 3): Managing CSV files (II)

This material provides a complete guide to creating a class in MQL5 for efficient management of CSV files. We will see the implementation of methods for opening, writing, reading, and transforming data. We will also consider how to use them to store and access information. In addition, we will discuss the limitations and the most important aspects of using such a class. This article ca be a valuable resource for those who want to learn how to process CSV files in MQL5.
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Population optimization algorithms: Firefly Algorithm (FA)

Population optimization algorithms: Firefly Algorithm (FA)

In this article, I will consider the Firefly Algorithm (FA) optimization method. Thanks to the modification, the algorithm has turned from an outsider into a real rating table leader.
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Brute force approach to patterns search (Part V): Fresh angle

Brute force approach to patterns search (Part V): Fresh angle

In this article, I will show a completely different approach to algorithmic trading I ended up with after quite a long time. Of course, all this has to do with my brute force program, which has undergone a number of changes that allow it to solve several problems simultaneously. Nevertheless, the article has turned out to be more general and as simple as possible, which is why it is also suitable for those who know nothing about brute force.
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Matrix Utils, Extending the Matrices and Vector Standard Library Functionality

Matrix Utils, Extending the Matrices and Vector Standard Library Functionality

Matrix serves as the foundation of machine learning algorithms and computers in general because of their ability to effectively handle large mathematical operations, The Standard library has everything one needs but let's see how we can extend it by introducing several functions in the utils file, that are not yet available in the library
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Understand and efficiently use OpenCL API by recreating built-in support as DLL on Linux (Part 1): Motivation and validation

Understand and efficiently use OpenCL API by recreating built-in support as DLL on Linux (Part 1): Motivation and validation

Bulit-in OpenCL support in MetaTrader 5 still has a major problem especially the one about device selection error 5114 resulting from unable to create an OpenCL context using CL_USE_GPU_ONLY, or CL_USE_GPU_DOUBLE_ONLY although it properly detects GPU. It works fine with directly using of ordinal number of GPU device we found in Journal tab, but that's still considered a bug, and users should not hard-code a device. We will solve it by recreating an OpenCL support as DLL with C++ on Linux. Along the journey, we will get to know OpenCL from concept to best practices in its API usage just enough for us to put into great use later when we deal with DLL implementation in C++ and consume it with MQL5.
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Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 2): Transition to virtual positions of trading strategies

Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 2): Transition to virtual positions of trading strategies

Let's continue developing a multi-currency EA with several strategies working in parallel. Let's try to move all the work associated with opening market positions from the strategy level to the level of the EA managing the strategies. The strategies themselves will trade only virtually, without opening market positions.
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Implementing the SHA-256 Cryptographic Algorithm from Scratch in MQL5

Implementing the SHA-256 Cryptographic Algorithm from Scratch in MQL5

Building DLL-free cryptocurrency exchange integrations has long been a challenge, but this solution provides a complete framework for direct market connectivity.
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Non-linear regression models on the stock exchange

Non-linear regression models on the stock exchange

Non-linear regression models on the stock exchange: Is it possible to predict financial markets? Let's consider creating a model for forecasting prices for EURUSD, and make two robots based on it - in Python and MQL5.
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Overcoming The Limitation of Machine Learning (Part 5): A Quick Recap of Time Series Cross Validation

Overcoming The Limitation of Machine Learning (Part 5): A Quick Recap of Time Series Cross Validation

In this series of articles, we look at the challenges faced by algorithmic traders when deploying machine-learning-powered trading strategies. Some challenges within our community remain unseen because they demand deeper technical understanding. Today’s discussion acts as a springboard toward examining the blind spots of cross-validation in machine learning. Although often treated as routine, this step can easily produce misleading or suboptimal results if handled carelessly. This article briefly revisits the essentials of time series cross-validation to prepare us for more in-depth insight into its hidden blind spots.
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Monitoring trading with push notifications — example of a MetaTrader 5 service

Monitoring trading with push notifications — example of a MetaTrader 5 service

In this article, we will look at creating a service app for sending notifications to a smartphone about trading results. We will learn how to handle lists of Standard Library objects to organize a selection of objects by required properties.
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MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 6): Dynamic Holographic Dashboard with Pulse Animations and Controls

MQL5 Trading Tools (Part 6): Dynamic Holographic Dashboard with Pulse Animations and Controls

In this article, we create a dynamic holographic dashboard in MQL5 for monitoring symbols and timeframes with RSI, volatility alerts, and sorting options. We add pulse animations, interactive buttons, and holographic effects to make the tool visually engaging and responsive.
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Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 24): Price Action Quantification Analysis Tool

Price Action Analysis Toolkit Development (Part 24): Price Action Quantification Analysis Tool

Candlestick patterns offer valuable insights into potential market moves. Some single candles signal continuation of the current trend, while others foreshadow reversals, depending on their position within the price action. This article introduces an EA that automatically identifies four key candlestick formations. Explore the following sections to learn how this tool can enhance your price-action analysis.
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Developing a trading Expert Advisor from scratch (Part 25): Providing system robustness (II)

Developing a trading Expert Advisor from scratch (Part 25): Providing system robustness (II)

In this article, we will make the final step towards the EA's performance. So, be prepared for a long read. To make our Expert Advisor reliable, we will first remove everything from the code that is not part of the trading system.
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Neuro-symbolic systems in algorithmic trading: Combining symbolic rules and neural networks

Neuro-symbolic systems in algorithmic trading: Combining symbolic rules and neural networks

The article describes the experience of developing a hybrid trading system that combines classical technical analysis with neural networks. The author provides a detailed analysis of the system architecture from basic pattern analysis and neural network structure to the mechanisms behind trading decisions, and shares real code and practical observations.
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Neural networks made easy (Part 35): Intrinsic Curiosity Module

Neural networks made easy (Part 35): Intrinsic Curiosity Module

We continue to study reinforcement learning algorithms. All the algorithms we have considered so far required the creation of a reward policy to enable the agent to evaluate each of its actions at each transition from one system state to another. However, this approach is rather artificial. In practice, there is some time lag between an action and a reward. In this article, we will get acquainted with a model training algorithm which can work with various time delays from the action to the reward.
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Data Science and Machine Learning (Part 19): Supercharge Your AI models with AdaBoost

Data Science and Machine Learning (Part 19): Supercharge Your AI models with AdaBoost

AdaBoost, a powerful boosting algorithm designed to elevate the performance of your AI models. AdaBoost, short for Adaptive Boosting, is a sophisticated ensemble learning technique that seamlessly integrates weak learners, enhancing their collective predictive strength.
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Automating Trading Strategies in MQL5 (Part 38): Hidden RSI Divergence Trading with Slope Angle Filters

Automating Trading Strategies in MQL5 (Part 38): Hidden RSI Divergence Trading with Slope Angle Filters

In this article, we build an MQL5 EA that detects hidden RSI divergences via swing points with strength, bar ranges, tolerance, and slope angle filters for price and RSI lines. It executes buy/sell trades on validated signals with fixed lots, SL/TP in pips, and optional trailing stops for risk control.
Interview with Atsushi Yamanaka (ATC 2011)
Interview with Atsushi Yamanaka (ATC 2011)

Interview with Atsushi Yamanaka (ATC 2011)

What is common between skydiving, Futures, Hawaii, translations and spies? We didn't know it until we've managed to communicate with disqualified participant Atsushi Yamanaka (alohafx). His has a creed "Life is Good!", and one can hardly doubt that. It was interesting to know that distances between the continents are not an obstacle for communication among our Championship's participants.
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Understand and Efficiently use OpenCL API by Recreating built-in support as DLL on Linux (Part 2): OpenCL Simple DLL implementation

Understand and Efficiently use OpenCL API by Recreating built-in support as DLL on Linux (Part 2): OpenCL Simple DLL implementation

Continued from the part 1 in the series, now we proceed to implement as a simple DLL then test with MetaTrader 5. This will prepare us well before developing a full-fledge OpenCL as DLL support in the following part to come.