Forex Blog

One of my site’s visitors asked me abouth the MetaTrader 4 indicator called “Float“. So I’ve decided to find this one and add it to the MT4 indicators list I maintain. Now everyone can download this interesting indicator and try to use it in Forex trading. It is designed to detect big trend changes and the current trend ‘exhaustion level’. As the bonus it also shows the Fibonacci levels on the main chart window to help the traders to determine good support and resistance levels. It would be fair to say that this indicator comes from StrategyBuilderFX forum’s members and is currently no longer updated.

There are many free MetaTrader indicators available on-line, but some people still enounter problems in attaching these indicators to a chart or even compiling them when needed. This simple user’s tutorial was made by me for those that want learn attaching custom MT4 indicators.

1. Download custom MT4 indicator and save it to the ‘indicators’ folder inside the ‘experts’ folder inside your MetaTrader’s installation folder:

2. If it’s already compiled (.ex4 file) then fine, if not (.mql file) - double click it with your mouse and it will be opened in MQL editor (this editor is standard for every MetaTrader 4); click the ‘Compile’ button at the center top of the editor window - the indicator will be compiled and ready to be attached. There might be some errors or warnings during the compilation, but in most cases there shouldn’t be any. You can try and fix those errors, but usually it takes some time and programming skills to do this.

3. After you get the .ex4 file in your indicators folder (through compilation or download), you can start using it with your MetaTrader platform. All you have to do is to attach it to the chart. If you know what you are doing you might also want to change some of the indicator’s input parameters.

OK. Now you can enjoy your new MT4 indicator and hopefully - better Forex trading results.

Backtesting MetaTrader expert advisors on historical data is a good way to test a strategy. But testing on the limited data supplied with MT4 installation gives a very poor quality of testing (usually below 50%). So, how to achieve a 90% quality in backtesting of MT4 expert advisors? It’s not that hard really, just follow this simple tutorial and you will able to test any MetaTrader EA.

1. Download a new MetaTrader 4 installation and install it to a separate folder. Be advised that a good MetaTrader historical data take up a lot of disk space, so install it to a drive with at least 1-2 Gbytes of free space. For download MT4 installation I recommend official MetaQuotes site.

2. After you install your MT4, don’t run it yet. Go to the folder you have installed it to. Go the ‘history’ folder there and delete all folders there (the actual folders names inside the ‘history’ folder may be different from those on these pictures):

3. Run the newly installed MetaTrader and open a free demo account with whatever broker it will be offering to you (official MetaQuotes installation offers random brokers for demo account opening in its MT4). Login to your account and close all open charts (if any).

4. Adjust the MetaTrader options to allow larger charts (more bars in history):
The close your MetaTrader.

5. Download a quality historical data for every currency pair you want to test your expert advisor on. I recommend Alpari History Center for this - download M1 data for each of the currency pairs you need.

6. Unzip the archive with M1 historical data somewhere. Rename it to comply with MT4 standard naming - i.e. EUR/USD M1 chart should be named EURUSD1.hst, GBP/USD M1 should be renamed to GBPUSD1.hst, etc.

7. Copy the renamed history file to your MetaTrader’s ‘history’ folder into your broker’s folder (overwrite if prompted):

8. Launch MetaTrader 4 again. Don’t open any charts on-line, open your downloaded M1 chart offline (example shown for EUR/USD chart):

9. It might take some time for the actual chart to load, but it’s OK. Now you need to convert M1 history to every timeframe you will need. For this you need to use a period_converter script which is a standard feature of all MT4 platforms. Run it from the Scripts tab and set its ExtPeriodMultiplier input parameter to the number of minutes in the desired output timeframe. For M5 enter 5, for M15 enter 15, for M30 enter 30, for H1 enter 60, for H4 enter 240, for D1 enter 1440, for W1 enter 10080, MN isn’t convertible as there is no fixed amount of minutes in one month:
10. Wait for the script to finish its work (may take up some time; it’s more than 2 years of data after all):

11. Repeat steps 8-10 for all timeframes you want to get.

12. Repeat steps 5-11 for all currency pairs you want to test your MT4 EAs on.

13. Voilà! Now you can enjoy a 90% quality backtesting and test every expert advisor you want on the time periods of more than 2 years. Good luck with your trading!

The Automated Trading Championship 2007, which was started by the MetaQuotes Software Corp. (the company that made MetaTrader trading platform), ended yesterday and the winners have been announced:

Participant Better earned the first prize of $40,000 with his outstanding neural network expert advisor, which has turned $10,000 into $130,475.45 in 12 trading weeks. Too bad this has been done on demo account, not real :-). A very interesting result with almost 150% distance from the second place. Unfortunately his expert advisor won’t be available to the public, as he refuses to sell or reveal it.

Second prize is going to user wackena, who made $55,042.10 out of $10,000 - a lot less than Better’s EA, but still a very convincing result - 450% in over 3 months. The prize for wackena is $25,000.

Third position belongs to user with the nickname Pegasmaster. His expert advisor earned him $15,000 prize, making $39,945.81 balance during the competition.

My own attempt at this championship made it to the 179th place with $6,684.44 balance left - making it a big loser expert advisor. I had no time not only to forward testing it before championship start, but also to backtest it on some accurate data. Anyway I’ve tried and probably in the next championship I will end up with at least a bit better result :-).

Congratulations to the winners and better luck to all who will participate in the next year’s contest!

ActiveTrades is my new addition to the Forex brokers list. It is quite an old on-line British broker, which allows not only Forex trading (via MT4 platform), but also stocks CFD trading and the access to the world exchanges: CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, LIFFE, EUREX, IDEM, NYSE and NASDAQ via futures trading. ActiveTrades also supports many different trading platforms: MetaTrader 4, J Trader, Ninja Trader, RAN Order, Strategy Runner and X Trader. Forex accounts can start with 250 euro, with the leverage reaching 1:400 level.

I’ve added a new MetaTrder 4 Forex broker to the Forex brokers section today - iTradeFX. It’s not a new broker to the on-line market, in fact it offers trading services since 2004, but it is a new broker to my site. iTradeFX has its own trading platform - WinTrader (along with a more common MetaTrader 4), which in my opinion is much inferior to MT4, though I’m sure it is quite popular among beginner Forex traders. Another good thing about this broker is that it is NFA member and regulated by CFTC, meaning that the funds deposited will be less likely to disappear.

A new Forex broker with quite a long on-line history and good stand (since 2004) was added to the Forex brokers section of a site. FIBOGroup allows CFD and Forex trading via both Metatrader 4 and Metatrader 3 trading platforms. The minimum deposit is $300 and the leverage at which account are set up is 1:200. At FIBOGroup accounts are easily opened on-line, but they don’t allow e-gold deposits (closed this option due to the problems with e-gold) - but they may reopen this option in future.

An interesting broker with both Metatrader 4 platform for standard and mini accounts and Currenex advanced trading platform for ECN Forex trading – Swissnetbroker is a Switzerland based Forex brokerage company aiming at both retail and institutional trading services markets. Retail traders will like their MT4 platform and pretty low minimum of $200 with scalping trading style allowed, while big traders will get all the advantages of Currenex ECN platform with 0 pips spread. As for the disadvantages of this broker – only wire transfer deposit/withdraw option and quite a long account registration process.

Using Metatrader expert advisors is simple, but sometimes people get confused with it and after downloading a file with the expert advisor a user might get stuck with it without knowing what to do next. This a simple tutorial on how to attach an expert advisor to Metatrader 4 char and activate it.

1. Download your MT4 expert advisor or copy it and save it to your Metatrader’s ‘experts’ folder:

2. Double click it with your mouse and it will be opened in MQL editor (this editor comes with MT4). There will be a button ‘Compile’ at the center top of the window. Click it and your expert advisor will be compiled and ready to use. There might be some errors or warnings during the compilation, but in most cases there shouldn’t be any. You can try and fix those errors, but it takes time and some programming skills, usually.

3. Now, all you need to do is add your expert advisor to the preferred chart and activate it. You can also change some input parameters for the advisor in the Inputs tab:

That’s it! Now you can enjoy your expert advisor - its signals or its trading (if it is designed to perform trading). Good luck with them!

MIG Investments is a Forex broker from Switzerland. It is one of the most legally clear broker for the serious traders. I say serious because the minimum account size is $2,000 with the Wire Transfer being the only billing option available. With MIG Investment you can use Metatrader 4 software and trade with their quite competitive spreads. One of the most remarkable thing about this Forex broker is that it shares some of its profits with the UNICEF organization, helping children all over the world. This is indeed a rare occasion that the rich help the poor in such aggressive and speculative industry as Forex trading.