Ryan L Johnson
- Futures & FX Strategist at Silk Road Trading LLC
- United States
- 5011
Futures & FX Strategist
at
Silk Road Trading LLC
As announced in my blog, I am PROGRAMMING MQL5 INDICATORS, EA's, AND SCRIPTS FOR FREE!
I started out in the afterschool of hard knocks as a kid... Hog farm, trailer park, firewood, etc. but I got my hands on an Apple IIe computer early too. I ended up with more degrees than a thermometer later in life and began trading in 1999. My most valuable bits of education helpful to trading were probably Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Math I and II, Statistics, and Computer Math. That's Computer Science for the younger generation, or hey... just Programming for the next younger.
The retail trading industry is comprised of a multitude of central exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, CME, etc.), captive off-exchange markets (forex, CFD's, etc.), broker-dealers, hedge funds, investment banks, pension funds, software providers, and data providers which take profits whether retail traders win or lose. The level of conflicting interests of commercial participants versus retail traders varies widely from one market to another. Step number 1 of becoming a successful trader is choosing the best market(s) to trade.
Having traded so many markets and instruments over the years, I now help beginning or struggling traders for free when they contact me. I have helped many other traders select a market, instrument, chart type, and strategy components without pushing my own products on anyone... no strings attached. The one thing that we the retail traders can do, that commercial traders will not, is help each other for free. (I must admit... I have given free help to beginning fund managers).
And by the way, other people have identified me as a part-time comedian... which I also admit.
Happy trading!🙂
I started out in the afterschool of hard knocks as a kid... Hog farm, trailer park, firewood, etc. but I got my hands on an Apple IIe computer early too. I ended up with more degrees than a thermometer later in life and began trading in 1999. My most valuable bits of education helpful to trading were probably Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Math I and II, Statistics, and Computer Math. That's Computer Science for the younger generation, or hey... just Programming for the next younger.
The retail trading industry is comprised of a multitude of central exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, CME, etc.), captive off-exchange markets (forex, CFD's, etc.), broker-dealers, hedge funds, investment banks, pension funds, software providers, and data providers which take profits whether retail traders win or lose. The level of conflicting interests of commercial participants versus retail traders varies widely from one market to another. Step number 1 of becoming a successful trader is choosing the best market(s) to trade.
Having traded so many markets and instruments over the years, I now help beginning or struggling traders for free when they contact me. I have helped many other traders select a market, instrument, chart type, and strategy components without pushing my own products on anyone... no strings attached. The one thing that we the retail traders can do, that commercial traders will not, is help each other for free. (I must admit... I have given free help to beginning fund managers).
And by the way, other people have identified me as a part-time comedian... which I also admit.
Happy trading!🙂
Ryan L Johnson
Published code Disconnect Alerts for MT5
Trade server disconnect alerts utility for MT5.
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Free Non-Repainting ZigZag indicator with Arrows and Alerts
17 August 2025, 23:33
Here is a non-repainting ZigZag indicator that I converted from MT4 to MT5. This indicator is already posted in several Forum threads but is not easy to find. Although it works, compiles without errors, and runs fine in the Tester, the CodeBase validator will not accept it...
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Added topic Home Network, PC, and MQL5 Code Security
Several forum users have reported hacking and malware intrusion into trading platforms and pc's, so the purpose of this thread is to give some guidance about security measures. No one knows everything, and I certainly never claimed to, so please post
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Published code Show Positions on Custom Chart (or standard chart) for MT5
This indicator is a utility that shows labelled trade levels on any chart. If you want to replace your native trade levels on a native chart, then turn off "Show trade levels" in your F8 Chart Properties and attach this indicator. If you want to show trade levels on a Custom Chart (where native trade levels cannot be shown), then simply attach this indicator.
BaseSymbol - specify the Symbol from which the trade level data will be pulled--handy for unique Custom Symbols.
TextBarsBack - specify the number of bars back in history from the current bar where the level labels will be drawn.
Note: Although magic number is referenced in the code, it is not presently included in the trade lines. If you're running multiple EA's on the same Symbol, you can edit the code to show magic numbers and then run multiple instances of the indicator on one chart. You can also edit the font sizes and text spacing in the object properties as needed for different display resolutions.
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Published post How Wall Street Really Operates - A Former Quant Turned Reformist
Here is the sad but honest truth about institutional high frequency trading (HFT...
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Published code Swaps Monitor for a Single Symbol
A simple utility for monitoring long and short swaps of a single symbol. If your broker-dealer's swaps are specified in points instead of account currency, this utility automatically converts points into account currency. Swaps are tripled on Wednesday. Horizontal and vertical alignment can be adjusted in the inputs.
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Published code Brooky Trend Strength for MT5
This indicator calls 3 other subwindow indicators. All files go in your Indicators folder.
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Here's a global map of where traders are using my software. It really is a small world.😊
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Ryan L Johnson
I've seen quite a few posts about hardware selection, so I'm sharing my experience on that subject here...
The MT4/MT5 mobile phone/tablet apps are mainly for monitoring current price and open trades, and receiving alerts--not for chart analysis nor placing trades. The mobile apps have fewer built-in indicators than the desktop platforms, and the mobile apps cannot run custom indicators. Also, mobile wireless devices inherently have slower and less reliable connections to data and trade servers. For example, my desktop's hardwired Ethernet has a 1000 Mbps connection while my 5G wireless devices have a 433 Mbps connection on the same modem-router. Keep in mind that cheaper internet service subscriptions are proportionally slower.
And if my wireless device and I go outside of my router's wireless broadcast range, wireless internet service is lost and then I'm totally reliant on my device carrier's mobile data service. My mobile data connection is never as fast as my home network connection. Therefore, I never use MT5 mobile for trading analysis nor placing trades. I only use it for receiving push notifications of disconnections between desktop MT5 and my broker-dealer's trade server, and notifications of trade executions (sent from my desktop platform).
Mac desktops are better than mobile devices but not best for running MT4/MT5. These trading platforms have been designed around the Windows pc operating system for decades. Metaquotes eventually created Mac "versions" so that more people can use the platforms without having to buy a new pc. However, Mac users generally must install and run virtual machine software and even so, the Mac functionality is never 100% on par with the pc functionality. Although Mac's are the gold standard for graphic design and desktop publishing, they are less than ideal for desktop trading.
Windows pc's have been the standard computers for both retail traders and commercial traders for decades. As retail traders, we have quite enough disadvantages to overcome. Commercial traders set up shop right next to exchange/market data centers, and they use pc's and/or field-programmable-gateway-array (FPGA) chipped computers. These folks are not using wireless devices (unless maybe, they're right on the floor of an exchange). Given the army that we're trading against, it makes no sense to disadvantage ourselves further by using workaround devices and slow/unreliable connections.
The MT4/MT5 mobile phone/tablet apps are mainly for monitoring current price and open trades, and receiving alerts--not for chart analysis nor placing trades. The mobile apps have fewer built-in indicators than the desktop platforms, and the mobile apps cannot run custom indicators. Also, mobile wireless devices inherently have slower and less reliable connections to data and trade servers. For example, my desktop's hardwired Ethernet has a 1000 Mbps connection while my 5G wireless devices have a 433 Mbps connection on the same modem-router. Keep in mind that cheaper internet service subscriptions are proportionally slower.
And if my wireless device and I go outside of my router's wireless broadcast range, wireless internet service is lost and then I'm totally reliant on my device carrier's mobile data service. My mobile data connection is never as fast as my home network connection. Therefore, I never use MT5 mobile for trading analysis nor placing trades. I only use it for receiving push notifications of disconnections between desktop MT5 and my broker-dealer's trade server, and notifications of trade executions (sent from my desktop platform).
Mac desktops are better than mobile devices but not best for running MT4/MT5. These trading platforms have been designed around the Windows pc operating system for decades. Metaquotes eventually created Mac "versions" so that more people can use the platforms without having to buy a new pc. However, Mac users generally must install and run virtual machine software and even so, the Mac functionality is never 100% on par with the pc functionality. Although Mac's are the gold standard for graphic design and desktop publishing, they are less than ideal for desktop trading.
Windows pc's have been the standard computers for both retail traders and commercial traders for decades. As retail traders, we have quite enough disadvantages to overcome. Commercial traders set up shop right next to exchange/market data centers, and they use pc's and/or field-programmable-gateway-array (FPGA) chipped computers. These folks are not using wireless devices (unless maybe, they're right on the floor of an exchange). Given the army that we're trading against, it makes no sense to disadvantage ourselves further by using workaround devices and slow/unreliable connections.
Ryan L Johnson
Published post The Biggest Reason Why 90% of Retail Traders Lose Money
This is not endorsement of any educational course, but there is truth in this guy's words...
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Added topic MT5 Beta Demo platform - switch from Netting mode to Hedging mode
When I first registered my MQ Demo account in the MT5 Beta platform, it was set to Hedging mode. Shortly after registering, MQ switched it to Netting mode likely because I'm in the U.S. where live hedging is prohibited. Obviously, I'm only using the
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Many U.S. retail traders wonder where to turn when they discover that they have been cheated by a broker-dealer. (Information for U.K., E.U., and Canadian traders also appears below). If you have been trading for a while, this has likely happened to you at least once...
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Introduction In this blog post, I will share general principles which I learned over the course of 25 years of trading stocks, futures, and forex. Learning these principles gradually enabled me to succeed in the markets...
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A more legible example file has been attached to the U.S. Income Tax Strategies for Forex and Futures Traders article at https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/756757
Ryan L Johnson
Upon becoming profitable, traders should begin to think about the most advantageous income tax strategy to use. The written and signed statement in the attached file at the bottom of this post is a redacted copy of my actual U.S. IRS Code Section 1256 Election. For income tax purposes in the U.S...
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