Calendar News Filter - pause any EA around high-impact news - library for MetaTrader 5

CNewsFilter answers one question for your Expert Advisor: is it news time right now? It reads the economic calendar built into MetaTrader 5, keeps the events of the currencies you choose with the importance you choose, and blocks a window of minutes before and after each release. Use it to skip new entries, or to close or protect trades, around high-impact news.

How to use it in an EA

#include <NewsFilter.mqh>
CNewsFilter news;

int OnInit()
  {
   news.SetCurrenciesFromSymbol(_Symbol);       // or news.SetCurrencies("USD,EUR");
   news.SetImportance(CALENDAR_IMPORTANCE_HIGH);
   news.SetWindow(30, 30);                       // minutes before / after
   return(INIT_SUCCEEDED);
  }

void OnTick()
  {
   if(news.IsNewsTime())
      return;                                    // no new entries around the news
   //--- your strategy
  }

Methods

• SetCurrenciesFromSymbol(symbol): the base, profit and margin currency of the symbol. SetCurrencies("USD,EUR"): your own list.
• SetImportance(importance): the minimum importance (low, moderate or high).
• SetWindow(before, after): minutes blocked before and after each release.
• IsNewsTime(): true while the time is inside a window.
• CurrentEvent() and NextEvent(): name, currency and time of the event, for your own panels.
• Total() and Event(i): all loaded events, sorted by time.
• SetRefresh(seconds), SetLookAhead(hours): cache refresh (default 5 minutes) and how far ahead the events are loaded (default 48 hours).

Good to know

• It uses the calendar of the terminal: no web requests, no DLL, nothing to allow in the settings.
• Event times are trade-server times, the same clock as TimeTradeServer().
• Only events with an exact release time are used; holidays and tentative events are skipped.
• The economic calendar is not available in the Strategy Tester. There IsNewsTime() always returns false and a note is printed once.

Demo

NewsFilterDemo.mq5 never trades on an account. In the Strategy Tester the calendar is not available, so there it opens and closes one small test trade a day instead. It shows on the chart whether trading is blocked right now and lists the next events. Inputs: currencies (empty = chart symbol), minimum importance, minutes before and after, number of events to list. Put NewsFilter.mqh into MQL5\Include and the demo into MQL5\Experts.