MQL5 Programming Articles

With this article we begin chapter nine of series of articles dedicated to creating graphical interfaces in MetaTrader trading terminals. It consists of two chapters where new elements of controls and interface, such as color picker, color button, progress bar and line chart are presented.

Today's article shows intermediate MQL5 programmers how they can get more profit from their linear trading systems (Fixed Lot) by easily implementing the so-called technique of exponentiation. This is because the resulting equity curve growth is then geometric, or exponential, taking the form of a parabola. Specifically, we will implement a practical MQL5 variant of the Fixed Fractional position sizing developed by Ralph Vince.

Hiding of the implementation details of classes/functions in an .ex5 file will enable you to share your know-how algorithms with other developers, set up common projects and promote them in the Web. And while the MetaQuotes team spares no effort to bring about the possibility of direct inheritance of ex5 library classes, we are going to implement it right now.

After I wrote a previous article on semi-automatic Expert Advisor with GUI interface it turned out that it would be desirable to enhance interface with some new functionalities for more complex indicators and Expert Advisors. After getting acquainted with MQL5 standard library classes I implemented new widgets. This article describes a process of designing and implementing new MQL5 GUI widgets that can be used in indicators and Expert Advisors. The widgets presented in the article are CChartObjectSpinner, CChartObjectProgressBar and CChartObjectEditTable.

What is social trading? It is a mutually beneficial cooperation of traders and investors whereby successful traders allow monitoring of their trading and potential investors take the opportunity to monitor their performance and copy trades of those who look more promising.

In the previous chapter, we wrote classes for creating vertical and horizontal scrollbars. In this chapter, we will implement them. We will write a class for creating the list view element, a compound part of which will be a vertical scrollbar.

In the part VIII of the series of articles dedicated to creating graphical interfaces in MetaTrader, we will consider complex composite controls like calendars, tree view, and file navigator. Due to the large amount of information, there are separate articles written for every subject. The first chapter of this part describes the calendar control and its expanded version — a drop down calendar.

This article considers BookEvent - a Depth of Market event, and the principle of its processing. An MQL program, handling states of Depth of Market, serves as an example. It is written using the object-oriented approach. Results of handling are displayed on the screen as a panel and Depth of Market levels.

In this article, we will consider the emission of indicators - a new approach to the market research. The calculation of emission is based on the intersection of different indicators: more and more points with different colors and shapes appear after each tick. They form numerous clusters like nebulae, clouds, tracks, lines, arcs, etc. These shapes help to detect the invisible springs and forces that affect the movement of market prices.

In the previous articles of this series, we have seen two reinforced learning algorithms. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. As often happens in such cases, next comes the idea to combine both methods into an algorithm, using the best of the two. This would compensate for the shortcomings of each of them. One of such methods will be discussed in this article.

In this article we will implement an algorithm that applies the Box and Jenkins Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model by using Powells method of function minimization. Box and Jenkins stated that most time series could be modeled by one or both of two frameworks.

Working with data has become the main task for modern software - both for standalone and network applications. To solve this problem a specialized software were created. These are Database Management Systems (DBMS), that can structure, systematize and organize data for their computer storage and processing. As for trading, the most of analysts don't use databases in their work. But there are tasks, where such a solution would have to be handy. This article provides an example of indicators, that can save and load data from databases both with client-server and file-server architectures.

Calls to user and technical indicators takes up very little space in the program code of automated trading systems. Often it’s simply a few code lines. But it often happens that it is these few lines of code which use up the largest portion of time, which needs to be spent on testing the Expert Advisor. Therefore, everything that is related to data calculations within an indicator, needs to be considered much more thoroughly than would seem at first glance. This article will talk precisely about this.

In this article, I will consider the toolkit for managing composite graphical objects - controls for managing an extended standard graphical object. Today, I will slightly digress from relocating a composite graphical object and implement the handler of change events on a chart featuring a composite graphical object. Besides, I will focus on the controls for managing a composite graphical object.

The "area method" trading system works based on unusual interpretation of the RSI oscillator readings. The indicator that visualizes the area method, and the Expert Advisor that trades using this system are detailed here. The article is also supplemented with detailed findings of testing the Expert Advisor for various symbols, time frames and values of the area.

The article considers the use of the CCanvas class in MQL applications. The theory is accompanied by detailed explanations and examples for thorough understanding of CCanvas basics.

The article considers the methodology for developing trading algorithms, in which a consistent scientific approach is used to analyze possible price patterns and to build trading algorithms based on these patterns. Development ideals are demonstrated using examples.

If an indicator uses values of many other indicators for its calculations, it consumes a lot of memory. The article describes several methods of decreasing the memory consumption when using auxiliary indicators. Saved memory allows increasing the number of simultaneously used currency pairs, indicators and strategies in the client terminal. It increases the reliability of trade portfolio. Such a simple care about technical resources of your computer can turn into money resources at your deposit.

In the previous article, we developed the visual part of the application, as well as the basic interaction of GUI elements. This time we are going to add internal logic and the algorithm of trading signal data preparation, as well us the ability to set up signals, to search them and to visualize them in the monitor.

The previous articles contain the implementation of the classes for creating constituent parts of the main menu. Now, it is time to take a close look at the event handlers in the principle base classes and in the classes of the created controls. We will also pay special attention to managing the state of the chart depending on the location of the mouse cursor.

This article presents an alternative method of GUI creation based on layouts and containers, using one layout manager — the CGrid class. The CGrid class is an auxiliary control that acts as a container for other containers and controls using a grid layout.

In the article, I will start developing the functionality for working with the Depth of Market. I will also create the class of the Depth of Market abstract order object and its descendants.

In this update of the library, the Table control (the CTable class) will be supplemented with new options. The lineup of controls in the table cells is expanded, this time adding text edit boxes and combo boxes. As an addition, this update also introduces the ability to resize the window of an MQL application during its runtime.

Trading Signals service recently introduced in MetaTrader 5 allows traders to copy trading operations of any signals provider. Users can select any signal, subscribe to it and all deals will be copied at their accounts. Signals providers can set their subscription prices and receive a fixed monthly fee from their subscribers.

A new version of the graphics library for creating scientific charts (the CGraphic class) has been presented recently. This update of the developed library for creating graphical interfaces will introduce a version with a new control for creating charts. Now it is even easier to visualize data of different types.

In the previous articles, we started creating a large cross-platform library simplifying the development of programs for MetaTrader 5 and MetaTrader 4 platforms. In the sixth part, we trained the library to work with positions on netting accounts. Here we will implement tracking StopLimit orders activation and prepare the functionality to track order and position modification events.

Today we will learn how to link an MetaTrader 5 terminal with Twitter so that you can tweet your EAs' trading signals. We are developing a Social Decision Support System in PHP based on a RESTful web service. This idea comes from a particular conception of automatic trading called computer-assisted trading. We want the cognitive abilities of human traders to filter those trading signals which otherwise would be automatically placed on the market by the Expert Advisors.

This article considers the application of multiple regression analysis to macroeconomic statistics. It also gives an insight into the evaluation of the statistics impact on the currency exchange rate fluctuation based on the example of the currency pair EURUSD. Such evaluation allows automating the fundamental analysis which becomes available to even novice traders.

The article considers the basic principles of mathematical expression parsing and calculation. We will implement recursive descent parsers operating in the interpreter and fast calculation modes, based on a pre-built syntax tree.

The present article develops the idea of using Kohonen Maps in MetaTrader 5, covered in some previous publications. The improved and enhanced classes provide tools to solve application tasks.

This time we are going to create a multi-currency Expert Advisor with a trading algorithm based on work with the pending orders Buy Stop and Sell Stop. This article considers the following matters: trading in a specified time range, placing/modifying/deleting pending orders, checking if the last position was closed at Take Profit or Stop Loss and control of the deals history for each symbol.

Another quarter of the year has passed and we have decided to sum up its results for MetaTrader AppStore - the largest store of trading robots and technical indicators for MetaTrader platforms. More than 500 developers have placed over 1 200 products in the Market by the end of the reported quarter.