Native Spread Monitor
- Utilità
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Ubaldo Barranco Jimenez
Algorithmic Trading Engineer | MQL5 Expert Advisors | Python | Quantitative Research | System Automation - Versione: 1.0
Native Spread Monitor answers a simple question: is the spread you are being charged right now normal for this hour of the day, or are you about to overpay? Every free spread tool shows the CURRENT spread. None of them show what is typical for this hour, because MetaTrader 4 never kept per-bar spread history. MetaTrader 5 does, and this indicator uses it.
WHAT IT SHOWS
A panel on the chart reports:
- Current spread, in points and pips, colour-coded against this hour's own history
- Where the live spread ranks against this hour's own samples, as a percentile
- Median, p90 and p99 spread across the whole lookback
- The cheapest and costliest hour of the day for this symbol
- An optional full 24-hour breakdown, one bar per hour
WHY THIS IS NOT AVAILABLE ON MT4
MetaTrader 5's rates history carries a per-bar spread field going back through the whole available history. MQL4 only ever exposed the CURRENT spread, with no historical record to build a profile from. A tool that tells you whether right now is normal could only ever be built on MT5.
HOW TO READ IT
If the live spread sits above this hour's 90th percentile, you are paying more than this hour normally costs, worth waiting out if your strategy allows it. A spread at or below the median is a normal, unremarkable read. Percentiles are computed from the sorted history itself, not estimated from an average, so a single wide outlier cannot quietly drag the whole picture.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
This tool never places, modifies or closes an order. It is read only.
REQUIREMENTS
- Works on any symbol and timeframe
- No special account type or broker feature required
- Needs at least 20 usable spread samples in the lookback window to build a profile; symbols with very little history show n/d instead of a guess
INPUTS
- Panel theme (Auto / Dark / Light), panel corner, panel X/Y offset
- History scanned (days)
- Show the hour-by-hour breakdown (off by default, keeps the panel compact)
- Live row refresh interval (seconds)
PART OF THE NATIVE SERIES
Four free tools that surface data MetaTrader 5 already has but does not show:
- Native Session Volume — volume split by trading session
- Native Spread Monitor — the spread you actually pay, hour by hour
- Native Depth Viewer — the order book, on the chart
- Native Account Stats — your closed trades, by symbol, hour and weekday
All four are free, read only, and share the same panel.
DISCLAIMER: spread history is read from your broker's own feed, not generated by this tool. Some brokers quote a fixed spread that barely moves hour to hour; if that's the case for your symbol, the percentile ranking will legitimately look flat, not broken. Past spread behaviour is also not a promise of what you'll pay on your next trade.
