Real Spread Monitor Pro — Full User Manual

Know your real spread. Know what it costs you.

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Real Spread Monitor (RSM) puts the one number most traders ignore right on your chart: the real bid/ask spread, live, and exactly what it costs you per trade. Scalpers and intraday traders lose money to the spread every single day. RSM shows you when the spread is normal, when it is too wide to trade, how it compares to volatility, and how it behaves hour by hour — so you trade with your eyes open.

Important: Real Spread Monitor is a monitoring tool only. It does NOT execute arbitrage and does NOT compare prices between brokers. It measures and displays the spread of your own broker. Works on any symbol and any timeframe.

Installation

1. In MetaTrader 5, open File → Open Data Folder.
2. Copy RealSpreadMonitorV3.ex5 into MQL5 / Indicators (or buy from the MQL5 Market, which installs it automatically).
3. Restart MetaTrader 5, or right-click Navigator → Indicators → Refresh.
4. Drag Real Spread Monitor onto any chart, set your watchlist if you want (defaults are fine), and click OK.

The floating panel appears in the top-left of the chart.

Quick start

1. Attach the indicator to an active chart (e.g. XAUUSD or EURUSD).
2. Read the big number at the top — the live spread of the focused symbol, plus its cost per lot.
3. Click any symbol in the watchlist to focus it and see its detailed stats.
4. Look at the AVG SPREAD BY HOUR chart to find the cheap and expensive hours.
5. Leave it running — it learns your broker's spread behavior and alerts you when the spread spikes.

The panel, element by element

Focused-symbol display (top)

Watchlist (middle)

Up to 10 symbols, each row showing: symbol name, current spread, its rolling average, the change vs average in %, and a sparkline — a mini graph of the recent spread trend. Click a row to focus that symbol in the top display.

Hourly heatmap — "AVG SPREAD BY HOUR" (bottom)

A 24-bar chart showing the typical spread for each hour of the day (0–23, broker server time). This is the tool's signature feature: it reveals exactly which hours are expensive (e.g. the midnight rollover, when many brokers' gold spread spikes) and which are cheap.

• Bar height & color — taller and redder = wider spread that hour; shorter and greener = tighter.
• "avg" reference line — a dotted line at the day's average. Bars above the line are the expensive hours to avoid; bars below are the cheap hours to favour.
• min / avg / max — the numbers behind the chart, shown next to the title.
• Current-hour marker — a small arrow shows which hour you are in now.

On-chart floating label

A small label in the top-right corner of the chart shows the current spread and cost for the chart symbol, so the figure is always visible even with the panel minimized. It can be turned off.

Features in depth

Live spread and cost-per-lot

The spread is read tick by tick and converted into real money for your reference lot size, so you see not just "22 points" but "USD 22 per lot". Set the lot you usually trade in Reference lot size to get a cost figure that matches your trading.

Spread status: OK / HIGH / CRITICAL / CLOSED

RSM judges the spread against its own recent rolling average, not an arbitrary fixed number — so it adapts to each symbol:

• OK — spread is around its normal level.
• HIGH — spread is at least High factor × the rolling average (default 2×).
• CRITICAL — spread is at least Critical factor × the rolling average (default 4×).
• CLOSED — the market for that symbol is closed.

Rolling average, min and max

The rolling average is computed over a moving window you choose (default 60 minutes). The session min/max give you the range so far. Together they tell you where the current spread sits relative to "normal".

Spread vs ATR ratio

A wide spread in a fast market may be fine; the same spread in a quiet market is expensive. RSM shows the spread as a percentage of ATR(14) so you can judge it in context.

Multi-symbol watchlist & sparklines

Monitor up to 10 instruments at once and compare their spreads at a glance. The per-symbol sparkline shows whether the spread is steady, spiking or calming down — without opening each chart.

Hourly heatmap — how it is built

The heatmap fills automatically using two sources, so it is useful from the moment you load it:

1. History backfill — on load, RSM reads up to 7 days of your broker's bar history and buckets the recorded spread by hour of day. For symbols whose history contains spread data (gold, indices, most CFDs), the chart is populated instantly.
2. Live accumulation — as it runs, RSM keeps adding live samples, and it saves this data to a file so it survives timeframe changes and restarts. For the few symbols whose broker history has no spread data, the chart fills in live over time.

If the heatmap looks empty right after loading on a new symbol/broker, give it a couple of minutes — RSM retries the history backfill automatically once the broker finishes downloading history.

Spread alerts

When the spread crosses the HIGH or CRITICAL threshold, RSM can warn you by popup, sound and/or push notification to your phone (via the MetaTrader mobile app). Turn each channel on or off independently and tune the thresholds to your style.

Themes, font and chart style

• Theme toggle — Dark or Light, switchable any time.
• Minimize — collapse the panel to keep your chart clear.
• Font scale — make the panel text larger or smaller.
• Optional clean chart styling (hide grid, modern candle colors) is applied while the tool is attached and restored when you remove it.

Input parameters

Tips & best practices

• Set Reference lot size to your usual size so the cost figure reflects your real trading.
• Use the hourly heatmap to plan: avoid trading during the bars above the avg line (rollover, news gaps, low-liquidity hours).
• Watch the spread vs ATR figure — a high percentage means the spread is eating a big share of the expected move.
• Keep the tool running on one chart so its history and alerts stay warm; the heatmap data is saved between sessions.
• For scalping, set the High factor lower (e.g. 1.5) so you are warned earlier.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

Disclaimer: Real Spread Monitor is a monitoring and analysis tool. It does not provide financial advice, does not execute arbitrage, and does not compare prices between brokers. All trading decisions are made by you. Trading leveraged instruments carries a high level of risk.