Discussing the article: "Building a Visual Position Planning Tool for MetaTrader 5"

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Check out the new article: Building a Visual Position Planning Tool for MetaTrader 5.

This article develops a visual position planning tool in MQL5 for evaluating trade setups before execution. The tool utilizes interactive Entry, Stop-Loss, and Take-Profit lines to calculate the stop distance, risk amount, estimated position size, potential reward, and risk-to-reward ratio directly on the chart. It supports market, limit, and stop order scenarios while keeping the focus strictly on planning and analysis rather than trade execution.

The Position Planning Tool follows a compact workflow. The trader selects the intended order type, the tool establishes initial Entry, Stop-Loss, and Take-Profit levels, validates the planned structure, calculates the main risk and reward metrics, and displays the result on the chart.

The tool supports six planning scenarios: Buy Market, Sell Market, Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop, and Sell Stop. Although these represent different order types, they ultimately belong to either a BUY or SELL setup. This distinction becomes important when validating the relative positions of the three planning levels.

The chart uses three horizontal levels:

1. Entry defines the planned entry price.
2. Stop-Loss defines the price at which the planned loss would be limited.
3. Take-Profit defines the intended profit target.

For market scenarios, the Entry level follows the current market price. For pending scenarios, the Entry level can be positioned manually together with the Stop-Loss and Take-Profit levels.

Initial placement is based on the Average True Range (ATR). Instead of starting with arbitrary fixed distances, the tool uses current market volatility to establish practical initial spacing between the three levels. The trader can then adjust them directly on the chart.

The configured risk percentage is combined with the account balance and stop-loss distance to estimate the monetary risk and position size. The same price levels are also used to calculate the potential reward and risk-to-reward ratio.

A dashboard consolidates the results in one place: order type, direction, Entry/Stop-Loss/Take-Profit, stop and target distances, monetary risk, estimated position size, potential reward, risk-to-reward ratio, and setup status.

Author: Chacha Ian Maroa