Swap Scanner Pro MT4
- Indicators
- Version: 1.40
Swap Scanner is an information panel that reads the swap rates published by your broker and presents them in a form that can be compared across symbols. Rather than showing raw swap values alone, it converts each rate into your deposit currency, annualises it against the notional value of one lot, and places the result next to the realised volatility and the daily trend direction of the same symbol. The panel does not open, modify or close orders and does not generate trading signals.
A swap may be published in different units depending on the symbol: in points, in the base currency, in the margin currency, in the deposit currency, as an annual interest percentage, or as points added when a position is reopened. Swap Scanner reads the calculation mode reported by the terminal for each symbol and reduces every mode to a single figure expressed in the account currency, so that a value on one row can be read against a value on another row. The conversion is derived from tick value and contract size and therefore also applies to symbols carrying a broker prefix or suffix.
Panel columns
- SYMBOL: the symbol name as supplied by the broker.
- SWAP L and SWAP S: the daily swap for a long and for a short position, converted into the deposit currency and scaled by the lot size set in the inputs. Positive values are credits, negative values are costs.
- DIR: the side with the higher swap value. A dash is shown when both sides are negative.
- CARRY%/y: the swap of the DIR side annualised and expressed as a percentage of the notional value of one lot. This is the figure that places different symbols on the same scale.
- VOL%/y: annualised volatility, calculated as the standard deviation of daily logarithmic returns over the lookback period, scaled by the square root of 252.
- EFF: CARRY%/y divided by VOL%/y. It expresses the size of the swap relative to the price fluctuation of the same symbol.
- TREND: the position of the current daily close relative to a daily exponential moving average, shown as UP, DOWN or FLAT.
- STATUS: a summary label derived from EFF and from whether DIR matches TREND. The labels are PRIME, HIGH, GOOD, OK and WEAK. COST is shown when both swap sides are negative, NONE when no swap is charged on either side, and LOWVOL when volatility falls below the threshold described below.
The information line above the table shows the account currency, the lot size used for the cash columns, the number of symbols read, the number of symbols that returned no data, the countdown to the next triple swap rollover, and the time of the last refresh.
Input parameters
Symbols and refresh
- Symbol source: read all Market Watch symbols, or use the custom list below.
- Custom list: comma separated symbol names, spelled exactly as the broker spells them.
- Add custom symbols to Market Watch (MetaTrader 5 version): when enabled, symbols named in the custom list that are not yet visible are selected automatically.
- Maximum rows displayed: the number of table rows.
- Sort by: efficiency ratio, annualised carry, daily cash amount, or symbol name.
- Show positive carry only: hides rows where both swap sides are negative.
- Refresh interval: seconds between recalculations.
Calculation
- Lot size for cash columns: affects the SWAP L and SWAP S columns only. The percentage columns are independent of lot size.
- Volatility lookback: the number of daily bars used for the volatility calculation.
- Trend EMA period: the period of the daily exponential moving average used for the TREND column.
- Days per year: the multiplier used when annualising the daily swap.
- Day basis for interest-type swap: used only for symbols whose swap is published as an annual interest percentage.
- Min volatility % for rating: the efficiency ratio divides carry by volatility, so a very small volatility figure produces a large ratio. When this parameter is set above zero, symbols whose annualised volatility falls below the value are labelled LOWVOL and receive no PRIME, HIGH, GOOD or OK rating. The EFF number itself is still displayed, so nothing is hidden from view. Managed or pegged currencies are the usual case for this. The default of zero disables the filter.
- Margin currency (MetaTrader 4 version): how the margin currency is interpreted for symbols that publish their swap in that currency.
- Triple swap weekday: the weekday used for the countdown. In the MetaTrader 5 version the Auto setting reads it from the symbol specification; a fixed weekday can also be selected. In the MetaTrader 4 version the weekday is set here directly. Brokers differ, so check the specification of your own broker.
- Server rollover hour: the hour of the server day used together with the weekday above.
Panel behaviour
- Panel move mode: double-click the title bar to unlock the panel and drag it, then double-click again to lock it. Alternatively the title bar can be dragged directly.
- Double-click threshold: the maximum interval in milliseconds between the two clicks.
Panel appearance
- Initial position, row height, font name, font size, and the colours of the background, text and value states.
Notes
Symbols must be present in the Market Watch window. In the MetaTrader 5 version the panel can add the symbols of the custom list itself, unless that option is switched off. In the MetaTrader 4 version, press Ctrl+U and show the symbols you want to monitor. When the Market Watch source is selected, the panel reads whichever symbols are currently shown there. A symbol counted as N/A in the information line is either unknown to the broker or spelled differently, for example with a suffix.
The VOL%/y, EFF and TREND columns require at least 21 daily bars. Newly added symbols display three dots until the terminal has downloaded the history. The swap columns and CARRY%/y do not depend on history and appear immediately.
Swap rates are set by the broker and can be changed at any time. The panel reports the values currently published by the terminal.
The panel can be attached to any chart and any timeframe. Calculations are performed on the daily data of the listed symbols and do not depend on the timeframe of the host chart. Monitoring twenty to forty symbols is suggested; loading several hundred symbols into Market Watch increases the time needed for each refresh.
Disclaimer
This is an analysis and information tool. It does not open, modify or close positions and does not produce trading signals. Please test it on a demo account and manage your own risk.
If you find this tool useful, a rating or review is appreciated. For questions or feature requests, please use the Comments section of this product page.
