Aurum Trade Director News
- Experts
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Hendrikus Johannes Gerardus Van Dongen
**Freelance Software Designer**
**40+ Years of Professional Experience**
Specializing in the design and development of custom trading software, including:
* Expert Advisors (MT4 / MQ4)
* C++
* DLL (Dynamic-Link Library) development
* Trade strategy implementation - Version: 1.5
- Mise à jour: 23 août 2026
- Activations: 5
ATDNEWS is a lightweight MetaTrader 4 news EA that automatically downloads, filters, and publishes Forex Factory economic news for use by other Expert Advisors on the same computer or VPS.
It downloads the weekly Forex Factory calendar at a configurable interval, stores the original file in MetaTrader Common\Files, applies the selected currency and impact filters, and creates a filtered calendar for shared use.
ATDNEWS supports individual ON/OFF filters for USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, NZD, CAD, CHF and CNY, together with HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW impact levels. Multiple currencies and impact levels can be enabled simultaneously. The default configuration is USD HIGH-impact news.
A configurable protection window blocks trading before and after selected events. The default is 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after. Overlapping news windows are automatically combined into one continuous block.
All news timestamps and block calculations use UTC, making ATDNEWS independent of broker server time and VPS local time.
ATDNEWS does not manage trades. It acts as a centralized news publisher for multiple MT4 terminals and EAs running on the same Windows installation.
Shared News Status
ATDNEWS continuously maintains:
Terminal\Common\Files\NewsStatus.csv
Because the file is stored in Common\Files, all MT4 terminals on the same computer can read the same status.
Typical states are:
NEWS_NO_BLOCK – trading is outside the protected news window.
NEWS_BLOCK – trading is inside an active news window.
The status file also works as a heartbeat. Receiving EAs can check whether it has been updated recently and optionally block trading if ATDNEWS stops or the file becomes stale.
If a fresh download fails, the server cannot be reached, or Forex Factory returns HTTP 429, ATDNEWS can continue using the previously downloaded cached calendar.
At the bottom of the display you can click a button. After clicking this button the .mq4 functions are shown as an example how the NEWS can be displayed. You can use this code as an EA that displays the NEWS or use the functions in your own EA. Easy and simple to use.
Main Inputs
NewsURL – Forex Factory weekly calendar URL.
DownloadIntervalMinutes – fresh download interval. Default: 60 minutes.
RateLimitRetryMinutes – retry delay after HTTP 429. Default: 15 minutes.
ErrorRetryMinutes – retry delay after other download errors. Default: 5 minutes.
WebRequestTimeoutMS – maximum WebRequest timeout.
DownloadImmediately – download immediately at startup.
UseCachedRawOnFailure – use cached calendar if a fresh download fails.
DebugMessages – enable diagnostic Experts-log messages.
File Inputs
RawNewsFile – original downloaded calendar.
FilteredNewsFile – filtered news calendar.
NewsStatusFile – shared real-time news status file.
Currency Filters
FilterUSD, FilterEUR, FilterGBP, FilterJPY, FilterAUD, FilterNZD, FilterCAD, FilterCHF, FilterCNY
Multiple currencies may be enabled. At least one must be active.
Impact Filters
FilterHighImpact – HIGH-impact events.
FilterMediumImpact – MEDIUM-impact events.
FilterLowImpact – LOW-impact events.
Multiple impact levels may be enabled. At least one must be active.
News Block Inputs
MinutesBeforeNews – block period before news. Default: 30 minutes.
MinutesAfterNews – block period after news. Default: 30 minutes.
StatusHeartbeatSeconds – refresh interval for NewsStatus.csv. State changes are published immediately.
Dashboard
The dashboard shows download status, HTTP response, downloaded size, enabled currencies and impact levels, filtered event count, next selected event, current news-block state, block window, data source, and Forex Factory rate-limit status.
NewsStatus.csv Layout
NewsStatus.csv is a compact single-row, 8-column CSV containing the current status only:
Status,UpdatedUTC,BlockStartUTC,EventUTC,BlockEndUTC,Currency,Impact,Title
Example:
NEWS_BLOCK,2026.08.12 12:15:00,2026.08.12 12:00:00,2026.08.12 12:30:00,2026.08.12 13:00:00,USD,HIGH,CPI m/m
Fields:
- Status – NEWS_BLOCK or NEWS_NO_BLOCK
- UpdatedUTC – last status update
- BlockStartUTC – start of protection window
- EventUTC – scheduled news time
- BlockEndUTC – end of protection window
- Currency – USD, EUR, GBP, etc.
- Impact – HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW
- Title – news event name
When no block is active, the time fields are zero and the currency, impact and title fields use NONE.
Receiving EAs usually only need the first field to determine whether trading is allowed; the remaining fields provide verification and event details.
Only one ATDNEWS instance is required per VPS, making it an efficient centralized news-control solution for multi-terminal MetaTrader 4 environments.
