Articles on trading system automation in MQL5
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Multi-Threaded Trading Robot with Machine Learning: From Concept to Implementation
The article presents a step-by-step development of a multi-threaded trading robot with machine learning in Python and MetaTrader 5. The system architecture is considered – from data collection and creation of technical indicators to training XGBoost models with portfolio risk management. The implementation of data augmentation, feature clustering via Gaussian Mixture Models, and flow coordination for parallel trading of multiple currency pairs is described in detail.
Developing a Replay System (Part 48): Understanding the concept of a service
How about learning something new? In this article, you will learn how to convert scripts into services and why it is useful to do so.
Low-Frequency Quantitative Strategies in MetaTrader 5 (Part 4): A Volatility-Adjusted Momentum-Based Intraday System
We present a timer-based MQL5 EA for Opening Range Breakout aligned to NYSE hours. It screens “Stocks in Play” via opening-range relative volume, enforces price/volume/ATR minimums, sizes positions by risk, and exits at 16:00 ET. A Sharpe-ranked optimization across 30 liquid Nasdaq stocks and a single-symbol test are provided, together with backtest settings and an Excel report for verification.
Neural networks made easy (Part 46): Goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL)
In this article, we will have a look at yet another reinforcement learning approach. It is called goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL). In this approach, an agent is trained to achieve different goals in specific scenarios.
Stress Testing Trade Sequences with Monte Carlo in MQL5
A backtest shows only one path among many possible outcomes. This MQL5 script performs 1000 bootstrap Monte Carlo resamples of a trade P&L series, draws a percentile fan chart on the chart via CCanvas, and reports probability of ruin, value at risk, and 95th‑percentile worst drawdown. The result is a practical view of path risk and drawdown exposure beyond a single equity curve.
Building a Correlation-Aware Multi-EA Portfolio Scorer in MQL5
Most algo traders optimize Expert Advisors individually but never measure how they behave together on a single account. Correlated strategies amplify drawdowns instead of reducing them, and coverage gaps leave portfolios blind during entire trading sessions. This article builds a complete portfolio scorer in MQL5 that reads daily P&L from backtest CSV files, computes a full Pearson correlation matrix, maps trading activity by hour and weekday, evaluates asset class diversity, and outputs a composite grade from A+ to F. All source code is included; no external libraries are required.
MQL5 Wizard Techniques you should know (Part 26): Moving Averages and the Hurst Exponent
The Hurst Exponent is a measure of how much a time series auto-correlates over the long term. It is understood to be capturing the long-term properties of a time series and therefore carries some weight in time series analysis even outside of economic/ financial time series. We however, focus on its potential benefit to traders by examining how this metric could be paired with moving averages to build a potentially robust signal.
Building A Candlestick Trend Constraint Model (Part 5): Notification System (Part III)
This part of the article series is dedicated to integrating WhatsApp with MetaTrader 5 for notifications. We have included a flow chart to simplify understanding and will discuss the importance of security measures in integration. The primary purpose of indicators is to simplify analysis through automation, and they should include notification methods for alerting users when specific conditions are met. Discover more in this article.
Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 8): Load testing and handling a new bar
As we progressed, we used more and more simultaneously running instances of trading strategies in one EA. Let's try to figure out how many instances we can get to before we hit resource limitations.
Developing a Replay System (Part 26): Expert Advisor project — C_Terminal class
We can now start creating an Expert Advisor for use in the replay/simulation system. However, we need something improved, not a random solution. Despite this, we should not be intimidated by the initial complexity. It's important to start somewhere, otherwise we end up ruminating about the difficulty of a task without even trying to overcome it. That's what programming is all about: overcoming obstacles through learning, testing, and extensive research.
Developing a Replay System — Market simulation (Part 09): Custom events
Here we'll see how custom events are triggered and how the indicator reports the state of the replay/simulation service.
Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 16): Impact of different quote histories on test results
The EA under development is expected to show good results when trading with different brokers. But for now we have been using quotes from a MetaQuotes demo account to perform tests. Let's see if our EA is ready to work on a trading account with different quotes compared to those used during testing and optimization.
Introduction to MQL5 (Part 22): Building an Expert Advisor for the 5-0 Harmonic Pattern
This article explains how to detect and trade the 5-0 harmonic pattern in MQL5, validate it using Fibonacci levels, and display it on the chart.
Neural networks made easy (Part 78): Decoder-free Object Detector with Transformer (DFFT)
In this article, I propose to look at the issue of building a trading strategy from a different angle. We will not predict future price movements, but will try to build a trading system based on the analysis of historical data.
MetaTrader 5 Machine Learning Blueprint (Part 12): Probability Calibration for Financial Machine Learning
Tree-based classifiers are typically overconfident: true win rates near 0.55 appear as 0.65–0.80 and inflate position sizes and Kelly fractions. This article presents afml.calibration and CalibratorCV, which generate out-of-fold predictions via PurgedKFold and fit isotonic regression or Platt scaling. We define Brier score, ECE, and MCE, and show diagnostics that trace miscalibration into position sizes, realized P&L, and CPCV path Sharpe distributions to support leakage-free, correctly sized trading.
Developing a multi-currency Expert Advisor (Part 15): Preparing EA for real trading
As we gradually approach to obtaining a ready-made EA, we need to pay attention to issues that seem secondary at the stage of testing a trading strategy, but become important when moving on to real trading.
MQL5 Wizard Techniques you should know (Part 69): Using Patterns of SAR and the RVI
The Parabolic-SAR (SAR) and the Relative Vigour Index (RVI) are another pair of indicators that could be used in conjunction within an MQL5 Expert Advisor. This indicator pair, like those we’ve covered in the past, is also complementary since SAR defines the trend while RVI checks momentum. As usual, we use the MQL5 wizard to build and test any potential this indicator pairing may have.
Automating Classic Market Methods in MQL5 (Part 1): Wyckoff Accumulation and Distribution
The article describes an MQL5 EA that automates Wyckoff accumulation and distribution via a finite state machine. It confirms spring to SOS and upthrust to SOW before placing LPS or LPSY entries, using relative tick volume as the confirmation metric. Readers get the state model, detection criteria, code organization, and MetaTrader 5 testing procedure.
Larry Williams Market Secrets (Part 12): Context Based Trading of Smash Day Reversals
This article shows how to automate Larry Williams Smash Day reversal patterns in MQL5 within a structured context. We implement an Expert Advisor that validates setups over a limited window, aligns entries with Supertrend-based trend direction and day-of-week filters, and supports entry on level cross or bar close. The code enforces one position at a time and risk-based or fixed sizing. Step-by-step development, backtesting procedure, and reproducible settings are provided.
Developing a Replay System — Market simulation (Part 11): Birth of the SIMULATOR (I)
In order to use the data that forms the bars, we must abandon replay and start developing a simulator. We will use 1 minute bars because they offer the least amount of difficulty.
From Novice to Expert: Backend Operations Monitor using MQL5
Using a ready-made solution in trading without concerning yourself with the internal workings of the system may sound comforting, but this is not always the case for developers. Eventually, an upgrade, misperformance, or unexpected error will arise, and it becomes essential to trace exactly where the issue originates to diagnose and resolve it quickly. Today’s discussion focuses on uncovering what normally happens behind the scenes of a trading Expert Advisor, and on developing a custom dedicated class for displaying and logging backend processes using MQL5. This gives both developers and traders the ability to quickly locate errors, monitor behavior, and access diagnostic information specific to each EA.
Neural networks made easy (Part 45): Training state exploration skills
Training useful skills without an explicit reward function is one of the main challenges in hierarchical reinforcement learning. Previously, we already got acquainted with two algorithms for solving this problem. But the question of the completeness of environmental research remains open. This article demonstrates a different approach to skill training, the use of which directly depends on the current state of the system.
Building a Trading System (Part 5): Managing Gains Through Structured Trade Exits
For many traders, it's a familiar pain point: watching a trade come within a whisker of your profit target, only to reverse and hit your stop-loss. Or worse, seeing a trailing stop close you out at breakeven before the market surges toward your original target. This article focuses on using multiple entries at different Reward-to-Risk Ratios to systematically secure gains and reduce overall risk exposure.
Category Theory in MQL5 (Part 22): A different look at Moving Averages
In this article we attempt to simplify our illustration of concepts covered in these series by dwelling on just one indicator, the most common and probably the easiest to understand. The moving average. In doing so we consider significance and possible applications of vertical natural transformations.
MQL5 Wizard Techniques you should know (Part 43): Reinforcement Learning with SARSA
SARSA, which is an abbreviation for State-Action-Reward-State-Action is another algorithm that can be used when implementing reinforcement learning. So, as we saw with Q-Learning and DQN, we look into how this could be explored and implemented as an independent model rather than just a training mechanism, in wizard assembled Expert Advisors.
Neural Networks in Trading: Dual Clustering of Multivariate Time Series (DUET)
The DUET framework offers an innovative approach to time series analysis, combining temporal and channel clustering to uncover hidden patterns in the analyzed data. This allows models to adapt to changes over time and improve forecasting quality by eliminating noise.
Cross-validation and basics of causal inference in CatBoost models, export to ONNX format
The article proposes the method of creating bots using machine learning.
Markov Chain-Based Matrix Forecasting Model
We are going to create a matrix forecasting model based on a Markov chain. What are Markov chains, and how can we use a Markov chain for Forex trading?
Python-MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester (Part 05): Multi-Symbols and Timeframes Strategy Tester
This article presents a MetaTrader 5–compatible backtesting workflow that scales across symbols and timeframes. We use HistoryManager to parallelize data collection, synchronize bars and ticks from all timeframes, and run symbol‑isolated OnTick handlers in threads. You will learn how modelling modes affect speed/accuracy, when to rely on terminal data, how to reduce I/O with event‑driven updates, and how to assemble a complete multicurrency trading robot.
From Novice to Expert: Adaptive Risk Management for Liquidity Strategies
In this article, we explore practical and robust risk management techniques specifically tailored for liquidity-based trading. You will learn how to protect positions during retests, handle false breakouts with confidence, and identify signs of potential level manipulation. By the end, you will have built an adaptive Expert Advisor capable of managing zone flips and executing strategic pending orders with integrated risk control.
Neural Networks in Trading: Contrastive Pattern Transformer
The Contrastive Transformer is designed to analyze markets both at the level of individual candlesticks and based on entire patterns. This helps improve the quality of market trend modeling. Moreover, the use of contrastive learning to align representations of candlesticks and patterns fosters self-regulation and improves the accuracy of forecasts.
Developing a Replay System — Market simulation (Part 14): Birth of the SIMULATOR (IV)
In this article we will continue the simulator development stage. this time we will see how to effectively create a RANDOM WALK type movement. This type of movement is very intriguing because it forms the basis of everything that happens in the capital market. In addition, we will begin to understand some concepts that are fundamental to those conducting market analysis.
Neural Networks in Trading: Controlled Segmentation (Final Part)
We continue the work started in the previous article on building the RefMask3D framework using MQL5. This framework is designed to comprehensively study multimodal interaction and feature analysis in a point cloud, followed by target object identification based on a description provided in natural language.
From Novice to Expert: Extending a Liquidity Strategy with Trend Filters
The article extends a liquidity-based strategy with a simple trend constraint: trade liquidity zones only in the direction of the EMA(50). It explains filtering rules, presents a reusable TrendFilter.mqh class and EA integration in MQL5, and compares baseline versus filtered tests. Readers gain a clear directional bias, reduced overtrading in countertrend phases, and ready-to-use source files.
Neural networks made easy (Part 51): Behavior-Guided Actor-Critic (BAC)
The last two articles considered the Soft Actor-Critic algorithm, which incorporates entropy regularization into the reward function. This approach balances environmental exploration and model exploitation, but it is only applicable to stochastic models. The current article proposes an alternative approach that is applicable to both stochastic and deterministic models.
MQL5 Wizard Techniques you should know (Part 49): Reinforcement Learning with Proximal Policy Optimization
Proximal Policy Optimization is another algorithm in reinforcement learning that updates the policy, often in network form, in very small incremental steps to ensure the model stability. We examine how this could be of use, as we have with previous articles, in a wizard assembled Expert Advisor.
Trading with the MQL5 Economic Calendar (Part 8): Optimizing News-Driven Backtesting with Smart Event Filtering and Targeted Logs
In this article, we optimize our economic calendar with smart event filtering and targeted logging for faster, clearer backtesting in live and offline modes. We streamline event processing and focus logs on critical trade and dashboard events, enhancing strategy visualization. These improvements enable seamless testing and refinement of news-driven trading strategies.
Propensity score in causal inference
The article examines the topic of matching in causal inference. Matching is used to compare similar observations in a data set. This is necessary to correctly determine causal effects and get rid of bias. The author explains how this helps in building trading systems based on machine learning, which become more stable on new data they were not trained on. The propensity score plays a central role and is widely used in causal inference.
Creating Custom Indicators in MQL5 (Part 3): Multi-Gauge Enhancements with Sector and Round Styles
In this article, we enhance the gauge-based indicator in MQL5 to support multiple oscillators, allowing user selection through an enumeration for single or combined displays. We introduce sector and round gauge styles via derived classes from a base gauge framework, improving case rendering with arcs, lines, and polygons for a more refined visual appearance.
Neural Networks in Trading: Hybrid Graph Sequence Models (Final Part)
We continue exploring hybrid graph sequence models (GSM++), which integrate the advantages of different architectures, providing high analysis accuracy and efficient distribution of computing resources. These models effectively identify hidden patterns, reducing the impact of market noise and improving forecasting quality.