Download 6.0 final here:
http://www.multicharts.com/trading-software-download/

For a list of changes in 6.0, see my forum post here:
http://www.bigmiketrading.com/platforms-indicators/2698-multicharts-multicharts-multicharts-22.html#post53482

Mike

The Metatrader 5 Iphone app will feature a uniform design that will seamlessly fit in the Iphone interface. The app is developed from scratch and well be 100% native to the Iphone OS. Also, it will be different from the interface in Metatrader 4 Windows Mobile. The release date is not known yet. If the mobile version of Metatrader 5 is one of the reasons you will buy a smartphone, this information will help you to decide what platform to buy. I personally like the Android OS.

If you want to use Metatrader 4 on your Iphone, you can use tools that create a remote connection to your desktop, where Metatrader 4 is running. For example, you can use the TeamViewer app for Iphone, it connects to any PC around the world and you can remotely control the PC as if you were sitting right in front of it. You can also seamlessly use iPhone to login directly to your PC running MT4 using the PC2ME app. With PC2Me you can remote control of your Windows PC, using your iPhone via the Safari browser. There is also a Iphone app that allows you to monitor your Metatrader 4 accounts using myfxbook.com’s backend:

Actually, the remote connection to the desktop version of the Metatrader terminal is in some cases better than a mobile version of MT for the smartphone. On the smartphone you have always limited computing resources and not all features of the full version of Metatrader. For example, if you are using a expert advisor on your desktop, you can only control it via a remote connection. But if you want to quickly check the market quotes, the mobile version is better.

Source: http://metatrader5.blogspot.com/2010/07/metatrader-5-for-iphone.html

Related posts:

1. Why MetaTrader 4
2. First broker to use MetaTrader 5 – Alpari Russia
3. Here Comes the New MetaTrader 5 and MQL5

First up is an X-Trader thread which I started.  I’m looking at opening an account at Velocity Futures (see details here) and the logical platform was X-Trader.  You can read more about why I think this is the best choice for me in the threads, but the short version is “I’m done with NinjaTrader”.  Even though for six months or so I’ve used MultiCharts exclusively for charting and backtesting, I still had to use NT for discretionary order entry (DOM).  I got tired of nagging problems with NT (both 6.5 and 7 have their own unique issues) and one day I just realized all the time I had spent battling this program and said enough was enough.

Second is a thread started by MetalTrade where he is specifically looking for NinjaTrader Replacements.  It’s a new thread, but stop by and see if you can help him choose his next platform.

The third thread was also recently started by Mega, and he is on the search for a solid trading platform.  His needs are a bit different than MetalTrade’s, so check out his thread as well.

I know many of you are happy with NinjaTrader.  Those that are happy are probably also the ones that don’t experience constant problems  But, you don’t have to read much more than the Truth about NinjaTrader thread to see all the widespread problems people constantly encounter.  If you aren’t experiencing issues, count yourself lucky!

Mike

A. A market order is an order to buy or sell a specific currency pair immediately at the current market price. An instant order is the order to buy or sell a specific currency pair at a specified price.

Q. How does this affect my stops and limits?

A. Stops and limits cannot be attached to a market order. You will need to place those separately after you have placed the initial trade. If you trade using an EA you may need to make some adjustments to allow for this.

Q. How does this affect my Expert Advisors (EAs)?

A. Some if not all EA’s will be affected by this change. Scripts that use Instant Executions to place market orders with take profits and/or stop losses attached will no longer work. Instead, a market order must be placed first and then a take profit and / or stop loss added to the position.

It is advised to change the following line:

Q. How does adding a 5th decimal (3rd on the JPY pairs) impact my trading?

A. Adding the additional decimal will affect both your manual trading and your Expert Advisors. You will need to allow for the extra decimal when dealing with Buy Stops, Sell Stops, Buy Limits, Sell Limits, Stop Losses, Take Profits, Trailing Stops as well as any other pip value related parameters by multiplying the current level by 10.

For example, if you are currently entering a stop loss level of 30 pips and a take profit level of 60 pips on a trade, you would need to change your stop loss level to 300 pips and the take profit level to 600 pips respectively.

Q. Will my custom indicators and EA’s work with the new 5th decimal pricing?

A. There is a possibility that your custom indicators and EAs may be effected by the new pricing format. To make sure that they are working as expected, please test them thoroughly on a demo account before re-enabling them on your live account. Please make sure that you have adjusted all pip value related parameters to allow for the additional decimal point.

Q. Do you have some information on updating EA’s to deal with the additional digit?

A. In your MQL4 code you often use the variable ‘point’ to refer to a currency point value. Or sometimes, you’ll use something similar to ‘MarketInfo( Symbol(), MODE_POINT )’ . With the switch to 5 digits these functions will return the wrong value for your stop loss and take profit calculations.

As an example, let’s look at the code of a simplified script to place an order.

In the above function, ‘point’ on a 5 digits server would return ‘0.00001’ or ‘0.001’. If your code is running on EURUSD and you calculate 100*‘point’ you will get 0.0010 which is 10 pips instead of the 100 pips originally intended.

Since the correct point values are either 0.0001 or 0.01, it is easier to create a variable, in our case ‘SymPoint’ and replace any instance of ‘point’ or ‘MarketInfo( Symbol(), MODE_POINT )’ with our new variable. Then set the ‘SymPoint’ variable to 0.0001 by default and only set it to 0.01 is the currency pair contains the Japanese yen. See code below:

Q. What changes will I notice in my Order Dialogue window?

A. Among other things, you will notice:

a) The price in the tick chart is quoted with 5 decimals (3 on the JPY pairs).

b) The Order Type is now Market Execution as opposed to Instant Order.

c ) There is no Enable maximum deviation from quote price option any more.

d) You will need to enter your stop loss, take profit and other values with the additional decimal point.

Q. How will the additional decimal effect the values expressed in the Trade Tab in the Terminal?

A. All profit and loss values already incorporated in the 5th decimal place adjustment when they are expressed as Points in the Profit column under the Trade Tab in the Terminal window in MetaTrader.

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader Tips – Stop Orders
2. MetaTrader Tips – Placing Pending Orders Using Charts
3. MetaTrader 5 – MQL5 for Beginners

Genetic algorithm ( GA ) refers to the heuristic algorithm ( EA ), which gives an acceptable solution to the problem in the majority of practically significant cases, but the correctness of the decisions has not been proven mathematically, and is used most often for problems, the analytical solution of which is very difficult or even impossible.

A classic example of a problem of this class (class NP) is a “traveling salesman problem” (is one of the most famous combinatorial optimization problems). The main challenge is finding the most advantageous route, which passes through the given cities at least one time, and then returns to the initial city). But nothing prevents to use them for tasks, which yield to formalization.

EA are widely used for solving problems of high computational complexity, instead of going through all of the options, which takes up a significant amount of time. They are used in the fields of artificial intelligence, such as pattern recognition, in antivirus software, engineering, computer games, and other areas.

It should be mentioned that MetaQuotes Software Corp. uses GA in their software products of MetaTrader 4/5. We all know about the strategy tester and about how much time and effort can be saved by using a built-in strategy optimizer, in which, just like with the direct enumeration, it is possible to optimize with the use of GA. In addition, the MetaTrader 5 tester allows us to use the user optimization criteria. Perhaps the reader will be interested in reading the articles about the GA and the advantages, provided by EA, in contrast to direct enumeration.

1. A little bit of history

Just over a year ago, I needed an optimization algorithm for training neural networks. After quickly acquainting myself with the various algorithms, I chose GA. As a result of my search for ready -made implementations, I found that the ones open for public access, either have functional limitations, such as the number of parameters that can be optimized, or are too “narrowly tuned”.

I needed a universally flexible instrument not only for training all types of neural networks, but also for generally solving any optimization problems. After a lengthy study of foreign “genetic creations”, I was still not able to understand how they work. The cause of this was either an elaborate code style, or my lack of experience in programming, or possibly both.

The main difficulties arose from coding genes to a binary code and then working with them in this form. Either way, it was decided to write a genetic algorithm from scratch, focusing on scalability and easy modification in the future.

I did not want to deal with binary transformation, and decided to work with the genes directly, ie represent the chromosome with a set of genes in the form of real numbers. This is how the code for my genetic algorithm, with a representation of chromosomes by real numbers, appeared. Later I learned that I didn’t discover anything new, and that analogous genetic algorithms (they are called real-coded GA ) already existed for more than 15 years, ever since the first publications about them came out.

I leave my vision of approaching the implementation and principles of GA functioning for the reader to judge, since it is based on personal experience of its use in practical problems.

For the complete tutorial on Genetic Algorithms visit: http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/55.

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 – Strategy Tester Released
2. Creating an Expert Advisor, which Trades on a Number of Instruments
3. Metatrader 5 Development – Interview with Stanislav Starikov

The MQL5 language provides an opportunity to obtain a vast amounts of information about the current terminal conditions, of the mql5-program, as well as the financial instrument and the trading account. In order to organize the functions of capital management, we will need to study the properties from the last two listed sections, as well as acquaint ourselves with the following functions:

• SymbolInfoInteger()
• SymbolInfoDouble()
• SymbolInfoString()
• AccountInfoInteger()
• AccountInfoDouble()
• AccountInfoString()

Although in this article, the main focus is kept on the use of functions in the Expert Advisors, all of these descriptions can be applied to indicators and scripts.

Obtaining information about your account balance

The first two important characteristics of a trading account – the balance and equity. To obtain these values, use the AccountInfoDouble() function:

   double balance=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_BALANCE);
   double equity=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_EQUITY);

The next thing that interests us, is the size of the deposit funds for open positions, and the total floating profit or loss on the account, for all open positions.

   double margin=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_MARGIN);
   double float_profit=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_PROFIT);

In order to be able to open new positions or strengthen the existing ones, we need free resources, not participating in the deposit.

   double free_margin=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_FREEMARGIN);

Here it should be noted, that the above values are expressed in monetary terms.

string account_currency=AccountInfoString(ACCOUNT_CURRENCY);

The level of personal funds

The account has another important characteristic – the level at which the event Stop Out occurs (a mandatory closing of a positions due to a shortage of personal funds necessary for maintaining open positions). To obtain this value, re-use the AccountInfoDouble() function:

double stopout_level=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_SO);

The function only returns the value itself, but it doesn’t explain what type of units this value is expressed in. There are two modes of level specification for Stop Out: in percents and in currency. In order to find this out, use the AccountInfoInteger() function:

//--- Get account currency
string account_currency=AccountInfoString(ACCOUNT_CURRENCY);

//--- Stop Out level
   double stopout_level=AccountInfoDouble(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_SO);

//--- Stop Out mode
   ENUM_ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE so_mode=(ENUM_ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE)AccountInfoInteger(ACCOUNT_MARGIN_SO_MODE);
   if(so_mode==ACCOUNT_STOPOUT_MODE_PERCENT)

      PrintFormat("Stop Out level in percents %.2f%%",stopout_level);
   else
      PrintFormat("Stop Out level in currency %.2f %s",stopout_level,account_currency);

For the complete tutorial visit:  http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/113.

Related posts:

1. Writing an Expert Advisor using the MQL5 Object-Oriented Programming Approach
2. Creating an Expert Advisor, which Trades on a Number of Instruments
3. MetaTrader 5 – Guide to Using Technical Indicators in Expert Advisors

The technical side of implementing the program code in order for a single Expert Advisor, launched on a single chart, to be able to trade with different financial assets at the same time. In general, this was not a problems even in MQL4. But only with the advent of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal, traders finally got the opportunity to perform a full analysis of the work of such automates, using strategy testers.

So now multi-currency automates will become more popular than ever, and we can forecast a surge of interest in the construction of such trading systems. But the main problem of implementation of such robots is in the fact that their dimensions in the program code expand, at best, in an arithmetic progression, and this is not easy to embrace for a typical programmer.

In this article we will write a simple multi-currency Expert Advisor, in which the structure flaws are, if not absent, then at least minimized.

1. Implementing of a simple trend-following system

In fact, we could start with a maximally simple trading system, following the trend on the basis of a built-in terminal of a technical indicator Triple Exponential Moving Average. This is a very simple algorithm, which does not require special commentaries, and which we will now embody in the program code.

But first and foremost, I would like to make the most general conclusions about the Expert Advisor. It makes sense to begin with the block of incoming Expert Advisor parameters, declared on a global level.

So, first of all we must choose the financial assets that we will be working with. This can be done using line input variables, in which the asset symbols can be stored. Now it would be nice to have a trade ban switch for each financial asset, which would allow to disable trading operations by the asset.

Naturally, each asset should be associated with their individual trading parameters of Stop Loss, Take Profit, the volume of the open position, and slippage. And for obvious reasons, the input parameters of the indicator Triple Exponential Moving Average for each trading chip should be individual.

Here is one final block of input variables for just one chip, performed in accordance with these arguments. The remaining blocks differ only by the numbers in the names of input parameters of the Expert Advisor. For this example I limited myself to only twelve financial assets, although ideally there is no software limitations for the number of such blocks.

We only need something to trade on! And most importantly – our PC must have enough resources for solving this problem.

Read more of this tutorial at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/105

Source: http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/105

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Installation
2. MetaTrader 5 – Guide to Using Technical Indicators in Expert Advisors
3. MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Optimization

Hotspot recently released their trading volume figures and the numbers are simply astounding. During May 2010 Hotspot transacted over $1 Trillion total volume… May 6th was the most volatile with almost $90 billion traded in a single day.

From January 2009 to May 2010, Hotspot’s volume has risen over +350%.

All in all it seems that Hotspot at this point is the single largest forex trading venue in the world, however watching the chart below you can see that while EBS and Reuters lag behind CME is picking up pace. CME’s growth in May was much higher than Hotspot’s though I’m not sure how this even compares as CME’s business is mostly FX contracts and futures.

Source: http://forexmagnates.com/hotspot-may-2010-forex-volume-over-1-trillion/

Related posts:

1. Retail forex trading grows by 16% in 2009, Hedge Fund volumes decline
2. Alpari launches Forex trading platform in India
3. MetaTrader 5 – Next Generation Forex Trading Platform

In the first article, we took a journey through the basic steps of creating, debugging and testing an Expert Advisor in MQL5.

Everything we did was very simple and interesting; however, the new MQL5 language has much more to offer. In this article, we will consider the Object Oriented approach to doing what we did in the first article. Most people think this is difficult, but I want to assure you that by the time you finish reading through this article, you will be able to write your own Expert Advisor which is object oriented based.

We will not repeat some of the things we have learned in the first article, so I suggest that you first of all read through the article if you have not already done so.

1. The Object-Oriented Paradigm

One of the things that make the new MQL5 much more powerful and robust than MQL4 is its OOP (Object Oriented Programming) approach.

It is recommended in OOP that an object should not expose any of its implementation details. This way, its implementation can be changed without changing the code that uses the object. This means that a class allows a programmer to hide (and also prevents changes to) how the class he has written is implemented.

To get things clearer, let us dwell a bit on the terms “‘class” and “object” just mentioned.

• CLASS. A class is more like an expanded concept of a data structure but instead of holding data only, it holds both data and functions. A class can contain several variables and functions, which are called the members of the class. It is an encapsulation of data members and functions that manipulate the data. A class is much more powerful, in that you can wrap up all your Expert Advisors functions in a class. You will only be making reference to the functions anytime you need them in your EA code. By the way, this is what this article is all about.
• OBJECT. An object is an instance of a class. Once a class has been created, to use the class, we must declare an instance of the class. This is called an object.  In order words, to create an object you need a class.

1.1. DECLARING A CLASS

A class, basically, contains the description of the members (properties and functions/methods) of an object you want to create from the class. Let us look at an example…

If we want to create an object that will have doors, sits, tyres, weight, etc and that can also start, changegear, stop and horn; then we need to write a class for it. The doors, sits, tyres, weight, start, changegear, stop and horn will be the members of the class.

Of course, you will observe that, these members are categorized; some are just what our object will have (properties) while the others are what our object will do (actions – functions/methods).  To declare our class, we need to think of a very good and descriptive name for it. In this case, we will call our class CAR. Our CAR class will have the properties and functions stated above as its members.

To declare a class, we start by typing the keyword class followed by the name of the class followed by a pair of braces that contains the members of the class.

So, the basic format of a class is as shown below:

class class_name
{
  access_keyword_1:
    members1;

  access_keyword_2:
    members2;
  ...
};

Here, class_name is a valid identifier for the class we want to write, members1 and members2 are the data members of the class.

The access_keyword specifies the access right to the members of our class.  An access_keyword can be private, protected or public. Remember that we are trying to write a class that can be used by ourselves and others without actually exposing the implementation details. That is why access rights are necessary.

There may be some members of our class we don’t want access to from outside of our class. These are declared within the private access section using the private or protected keyword. Other members that we want access to from outside of our class will then be declared within the public access section using the public keyword. Now, our new CAR class will now look like below:

class CAR
{
  private:
    int        doors;
    int        sits;
    int        tyres;
    double     weight;

  public:
    bool       start();
    void       changegear();
    void       stop();
    bool       horn();
  ...
};

Our CAR class is declared using the keyword class. This class contains eighth members with four members having private access and four members having public access. The four members in the private section are data members. Three are of integer (int) data type and one a double data type. These members cannot be accessed by any other function that is declared outside of this class.

The four members in the public section are function members. Two returns bool data type and two returns void type. These are the members that are accessible to any object of this class whenever it is created by anyone using our class. Once an object of our class is created, these members will be readily available for use.

As you will rightly observed, the access keywords (private, public, protected) are always followed by a colon. The class declaration also ended with a semi-colon. The members are declared using their correct data type.

It should be noted that once you declare a class, all members of the class are given private access rights unless it is explicitly specified as we did above. For example, in the class declaration below:

class CAR
{
    int        doors;
    int        sits;
    int        tyres;
    double     weight;

  public:
    bool       start();
    void       changegear();
    void       stop();
    bool       horn();
  ...
};

All the four members declared above the public access keyword automatically have private access.

For our class to be used, an object of the class must first of all be created. Now, let us create an object which is a type of our class. To do this we will use our class name followed by the name we want to give the object.

Or we can create another object

Honda or Toyota is now a type of a CAR and can now have access to all the member functions of our CAR class provided the member functions are declared within the public access section. We will come back to this later.

You can see that we can create as many objects of this class as we want. This is one of the benefits of Object Oriented programming.

At this point, let us consider in details, the format of a class in MQL5.

class class_name
{
  private:
    members1;
    members2;
    members3;

  public:
    class_name()  //Constructor;
    ~class_name() //Destructor;
    Members4();
    Members5();

  protected:
    members6;
    members7;
};

This is a declaration of a class where class_name is the name of the class. This class has nine members, but out of this nine, two are special members.

The Constructor:
The constructor (represented as class_name()) is a special function that is called automatically when a new object of the type of the class is been created. So in this case, when you create an object of the type of this class

the constructor, class_name(), is called automatically. The name of the constructor must match the name of the class, that is why we named the constructor as class_name(). In MQL5, a constructor does not take any input parameters and has no return type. Memory allocations and initialization of the class members are normally done when the constructor is called. Constructors cannot be called explicitly as if they were regular member functions. They are only executed when a new object of that class is created. A class in MQL5 can only have one constructor.

The Destructor:
The second special member is represented as ~class_name(). This is the class destructor written with a tide (~) before the class name. It is called automatically when a class object is destroyed. All members of the class that needs to be de-initialized are de-initialized at this stage and it does not really matter whether you explicitly declared the destructor or not.

Data Members:
Members of a class can be any legal data type, a class type or a struct type. In order words, when declaring member variables of a class, you can use any legal data type (int, double, string, etc), an object of another class or a type of a structure (for example, the MQL5 MqlTradeRequest, etc)

Function Members:
These are members of the class which are used for modifying the data members and executing the major functions/ methods of the class. The return type for the function members can be of any legal return type (bool, void, double, string, etc).

Private:
Members declared within this section are only accessible by the function members of the class. They cannot be accessed by any other function outside of the class.

Protected:
Members declared within this section are accessible to the function members of the class and also can be accessed by the member functions of other classes that are derived from this class. This means that we can also create a new class from this class. In this case, the new class derived from this class (which will now become the base class) will be able to access the protected members of the base class. This is the concept of inheritance in OOP. We will soon discuss about it, just relax…

Public:
Members declared within this section are available for usage outside of the class by an object of the class. This is where to declare some of the functions that will be needed to use the class in other programs.

Now that we have looked at the basic format of a class, I hope you are not bored yet because we still have some other interesting aspect of classes we want to look at before we finally jump into creating a class wrapper for our Expert Advisor.

1.2. INHERITANCE

Let’s say we want to make another class from this initial class base_class. The format for deriving a new class from an initial class is as follows:

The Base Class:

class base_class
{
  private:
    members1;
    members2;
    members3;

  public:
    class_name()  //Constructor;
    ~class_name() //Destructor;
    Members4();
    Members5();

  protected:
    members6;
    members7;
};

The Derived Class:

class new_class : access_keyword base_class
{
  private:
    members8;

  public:
    new_class()  //Constructor;
    ~new_class() //Destructor;
    Members9();
};

A few explanations here before we proceed to explain the details. The class new_class is derived from the class base_class using the colon and an access_keyword as shown above. Now, the new_class derived/made from base_class can now access (or inherit) both the public and protected members of base_class but cannot access (or not inherit) the private members of the base_class. The new_class can also implement new member methods/functions different from the base_class. In order words, the new_class can also have its own data and function members apart from the ones it inherits from the base_class.

If the public keyword is used in creating the derived class, it means that the public and protected members of the base class will be inherited as public and protected members of the derived class. If the Protected keyword is used, public and protected members of base class will be inherited as protected members of the derived class. If the private keyword is used, the public and protected members of base class will be inherited as private members of the derived class.

To better understand this concept of inheritance, let us go back to our initial class CAR.

class CAR
{
  protected:
    int        doors;
    int        sits;
    double     weight;

  public:
    bool       start();
    void       changegear();
    void       stop();
    bool       horn();

  private:
    int        tyres;
};

We can derive another class SALOON  from this class. Notice that I have declared three of the data members of the class CAR as protected. This is to enable our new class SALOON inherit these members.

Also, I want you to understand that the order in which you place the access keywords does not matter. What matters is that all members declared under an access keyword belong to that keyword.

class SALOON : public CAR
{
  private:
    int        maxspeed;

  public:
    void       runathighspeed();
};

Our derived class SALOON has two members and at the same time inherits seven members (protected and public members) from the base class CAR. This means that once an object of SALOON is created, it will be able to access the public member functions of CAR which are start(), changegear(), stop() and horn() together with its own public member function runathighspeed(). This is the concept of inheritance.

Just as some characters/behaviours (methods) of our father/parents (base class) show up in us, their children (derived class), because we inherit those behaviours (methods/functions) from them either genetically or otherwise. Sorry, I am not a medical personnel, but I believe you quite grasp the picture I am trying to paint. By the way, MQL5 does not support multiple inheritance, so no need to talk about it.

Hmm!!! I hope the black cloth covering the mystical thing called OOP or CLASS is been removed little by liitle… don’t get tired, if you feel at this point you are still not very clear with what we are discussing, you may need to relax, take a cup of coffee and then come back and start from the beginning. It is not as mysterious as you think…

If you are now back at this point, I assume you are following my explanation. I want you to tell me how many more classes you can derive from our base class CAR? Please I need you answer. I am serious. Name them and write their declarations and mail them to me. If you can name them all, I will take you out for launch… (am I kidding?)

Now that you are set for more, let’s continue…

It is true that when I write, I write like my Dad. His hand writings are very neat and highly stylish just like mine. I guess it is something I inherit from him, but guess what; he uses his left hand to write while I use my right hand and when you see the writings you can hardly differentiate because they look similar. What is the problem here? I inherit good hand-writing from my father but I do not write with my left hand like my father. This means that even though it’s what I inherit and it looks similar but the way I do mine is different from my father. Does this make sense to you? This is an idea of what is called Polymorphism in OOP.

A derived class (myself, as in the example above) inherits a member function (writefine() – for my handwritng) from a base class (my Dad) but it (I) implements the function (writefine() ) in a different way from the base class (My Dad).

Back to our CAR class, and the derived class SALOON;

class CAR
{
  protected:
    int        doors;
    int        sits;
    double     weight;

  public:
    bool               start();
    virtual void       changegear(){return(0);}
    void               stop();
    bool               horn();

  private:
    int        tyres;
};

class SALOON : public CAR
{
  private:
    int        maxspeed;

  public:
    void               runathighspeed();
    virtual  void       changegear(){gear1=reverse; gear2=low; gear3=high;}
  };

class WAGON : public CAR
{
  private:
    bool               hasliftback;

  public:
   virtual  void       changegear(){gear1=low; gear2=high; gear3=reverse;}
};

Let us look at a few changes we have made here. First, we have declared a new derived class from CAR named WAGON with two members. We have also modified the member function changegear() to become a virtual function in the base class. Why did we make changegear() a virtual function. It is simply because we want any class that inherits the function from the base class to be able to implement it in its own way.

In other words, virtual member functions of a class are member functions that can be overridden or implemented differently in any class derived from the class where they are declared. The member function body can then be replaced with a new set of implementation in the derived class. Even though, we may not use the word virtual again in the derived classes, it is good programming practice to always use it in the derived classes.

From the examples above, classes SALOON and WAGON implements the function changegear() in their own ways.

1.3. DEFINING CLASS METHODS (MEMBER FUNCTIONS)

Since we have known, to some extent, how to declare classes; let’s move further by discussing how to define the member functions of a class. After we have declared the class, the next thing is to define the member functions of our class. Let us look at our CAR class again

class CAR
{
  protected:
    int        doors;
    int        sits;
    double     weight;

  public:
    void       CAR() // Constructor
    bool       start();
    void       changegear();
    void       stop();
    bool       horn(){press horn;}

  private:
    int        tyres;
};

 void CAR::CAR()
{
 // initialize member variables here
}

bool CAR::start()
{
 // car start procedure here
}

void CAR::changegear()
{
// car changegear procedure here
}

void CAR::stop()
{
// car stop procedure here
}

In defining the member functions, we have used a double colon (::) operator called the scope operator. This is written just like normal functions, the only difference is the class name and the scope operator that is added. You will also observe that one of the functions was already defined within the class (member function horn()). A member function can be defined in the class declaration or outside the class declaration as you have seen it here.

I think it will be of importance if we can review the concept of functions a little before we proceed.

1.4. FUNCTIONS

By the way, what is a function?

Sometimes in a house where you have three kids, rather than just one of them doing all the works in the house; one was asked to be washing the plates every day after supper, one was asked to be doing the sweeping while the third was given the task of arranging the beds every morning.

There are some works to be done in the house, instead of giving all the works to one child, we divided it among the three of them. This will make the task very easy and light for each one of them rather than been a burden to just one of them. Also, if one of the kids did not do his/her task, we quickly know which one of them to flog.  This is the idea behind functions.

Most times we want to write a code that will do many tasks. This is where functions come in. We can decide to break the task into smaller tasks and then write a function to perform each of the smaller tasks.  A function is a code-block that performs or implements a set of operations. It is a group of statements that is executed whenever it is called from some point in a program.

A function can be defined as follows:

Return_type function_name (parameters1,parameters2,…)
{
  Expressions; //(actions to carry out by the function)
}

• Return_type : the data type returned by the function (must be a valid data type or void if it returns nothing)
• Function_name: the name of the function (must be a valid name) which will be used for calling the function
• Parameters: parameters are valid data type variables which will act within the function as a local variable. If a function has more than one parameter, they are separated by commas.
• Expressions: the body of the function that contains block of statements

Example of a function:

int doaddition (int x, int y)
{
 return (x+y);
}

The function return type is integer (int), doaddition is the function name and int x and int y are the parameters. What the function does is to add any two input parameters supplied it and return the result.  So if we supply the function with two integer variables 2 and 3, the function will do the addition and return 5 as the result.

int doaddition(2,3) // returns 5

For more information about functions, please consult the MQL5 Reference manual.

Now enough of the theories let us get down to work.

The essence of this article is to teach you how you can write a class for your Expert Advisor using the Object Oriented approach presented in MQL5.

It is now time for action…

Click here to read the rest of the tutorial.

Source: http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/116

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 – Migrating from MQL4 to MQL5
2. List of changes in the Help for MQL5 – MetaTrader 5
3. Functions for Money Management in an Expert Advisor

Introduction

This article is aimed at beginners who wish to learn how to write simple Expert Advisors in the new MQL5 language. We will begin first by defining what we want our EA (Expert advisor) to do, and then move on to how we want the EA to do it.

1. Trading Strategy

What our EA will do:

• It will monitor a particular indicator, and when a certain condition is met (or certain conditions are met), it will place a trade (either a Short/Sell or Long/Buy), depending on the present condition that has been met.

The above is called a trading strategy. Before you can write an EA, you must first develop the strategy that you want to automate into the EA. So in this case, let us modify the above statement so that it reflects the strategy we want to develop into an EA.

• We will use an indicator called Moving Average with a period of 8 ( You can choose any period, but for the purpose of our strategy, we will use 8 )
• We want our EA to place a Long (Buy) trade when the Moving Average-8 (for the sake of our discussion, I will refer to it as MA-8) is increasing upwards and the price is close above it and it will place a Short (Sell) when MA-8 is decreasing downwards and the price is close below it.
• We are also going to use another indicator called Average Directional Movement (ADX) with period 8 also to help us determine whether the market is trending or not. We are doing this because we only want to enter the trade when the market is trending and relax when the market is ranging (that is, not trending). To achieve this, we will only place our trade (Buy or Sell) when above conditions are met and the ADX value is greater that 22. If ADX is greater that 22 but decreasing, or ADX is less than 22, we will not trade, even though the condition B has been met.
• We want to also protect ourselves by setting a Stop loss of 30 pips, and for our Profit target; we will target a profit of 100 pips.
• We also want our EA to look for Buy/Sell opportunities only when a new bar has been formed and we will also make sure we open a Buy position if the Buy conditions are met and we do not already have one opened, and open a Sell position when the Sell conditions are met and we do not already have one opened.

We have now developed our strategy; it is now time to start writing our code.

View full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/100

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 – How to call indicators in MQL5
2. List of changes in the Help for MQL5 – MetaTrader 5
3. MetaTrader 5 – Guide to Using Technical Indicators in Expert Advisors

As little as 5 years ago, the MetaTrader 4 terminal was officially presented to the traders, written completely from scratch and intending to replace the existing, and already popular, third generation terminal of MetaQuotes Software Corp. MetaTrader 4 quickly gained popularity among traders, and as a consequence, in the following years, hundreds of brokers began to provide their services on the MetaTrader 4 platform.

Despite this success, 3 years ago developers decided to create an informatory – trading platform of a new generation, and in November of 2009 the public testing of MetaTrader 5 had begun. We all tend to take a strong liking to the known and the familiar and take a cautious approach to changes. Traders are no exception to this behavior. Therefore we decided to help, all who desired, to understand the differences and advantages of the MetaTrader 5 platform in comparison to the well-known MetaTrader 4.

New markets and instruments

From the beginning, MetaTrader was intended to be a convenient and user friendly platform for trading on the Forex market. Today, it is difficult to even imagine that many years ago, in almost all other terminals, trade was conducted on demand, it was not possible to create your own technical indicators and trading robots, and opportunities for technical analysis were implemented more in words than actual actions. And so, traders who sold through other financial markets began to express a desire to sell through MetaTrader.

View full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/84

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 – Next Generation Forex Trading Platform
2. MQL4 for Dummies
3. First broker to use MetaTrader 5 – Alpari Russia

• History/version control: see the article as it existed at each point-in-time, and exact changes that were made and by whom.
• Supports redirects. Sometimes, an article topic may be frequently described using different words, for example backtest and backtesting. You can create a redirect so that these frequently used words redirect to the main article, just as backtest -> redirects to backtesting in my example.
• Globally editable. Find an error? Care to improve an article? It’s easy, just edit it and do fix it.
• Watch wiki articles and receive notifications/updates if they change.
• Autolinking: each word within a wiki that matches a keyword or phrase in the system will be autolinked to the article.
• Searchable: you can use the same tools you use today to search posts, and they will now find wiki articles as well.
• Discussions: you can discuss articles right from the wiki interface. The discussion feature is meant to talk about the layout or content of the article, not to talk about the topic itself. That is an important distinction.

Guys, I look forward to your feedback on the wiki. It is a big endeavor, but I’ve never shied away from challenging projects or time consuming ones. With your help, our wiki can make the entire site exponentially better!

The wiki is public. There is no Elite and non-Elite within the wiki. However, some articles may discuss Elite-only indicators or strategies, so should that be the case just remember to not post any attachments that you would not post out in the open. You can link to the attachments as they exist in the Elite sections of the forum, and that way only Elite members can access them.

I’ve created several videos to get you started. You can find them on the main Wiki page, which is accessible from the main navigation bar at the top of every BMT page.

Videos:
How-to use the wiki
How-to create a wiki article
How-to attach images to a wiki article

I will be creating many more videos in the days and weeks ahead.

Please use this thread to ask questions or provide feedback on the wiki.

Thank you,
Mike

Often, I see the traders are in a hurry to make money and to be successful in trading.  The simple truth is, there are no shortcuts in trading.  You cannot rush things.  No matter how much you want to.

You can blow up a bridge in seconds with enough dynamite, but it can take years to build a bridge.

Think of it this way.  In very short order, you can do an enormous amount of damage to your trading account, and thus, your entire trading career.  A few bad decisions can lead to devastating losses.

Whereas building up your trading account and learning to make right decisions — this process can take years. You must do everything right or it will lead to cracks in the foundation, problems in the support infrastructure, and that will lead to disaster in the future.  There are no shortcuts.

Mike

With the testing you can assess the qualities of your Expert Advisor on history data before launching it in real trading. Optimization allows choosing the most profitable parameters for your Expert Advisor making it a real efficient one. The Strategy Tester is an indispensable tool for developers of Expert Advisors. It is almost impossible to develop a profitable an error-free Expert Advisor without the tester.

As compared to the tester in MetaTrader 4, the new MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester is a more powerful and accurate tool. It has obtained the new function of distributed optimization that will be useful in work with compound Expert Advisors. Besides that, the Strategy Tester offers efficient testing of multi-currency Expert Advisors.

“The Strategy Tester is the last component from the set of required tools for efficient development of Expert Advisors. This set also includes the MQL5, MetaEditor, debugger and execution module in the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal. The absence of a tester was the last obstacle to the wide possibilities provided by the MQL5 environment. We hope that together with the release of MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester, the number of new MQL5 Expert Advisors will sharply increase”, – Stanislav Starikov, the senior developer of MetaTrader 4/5 terminals and MQL4/5, said.

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal – First Screenshots and Information
2. The Debugger – a novelty of MetaTrader 5
3. MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Optimization

Mirus Futures will also be holding a webinar on Big Mike Trading on Thursday, June 17th at 3:00PM Eastern Time.  They will go over their infrastructure and service, and also include details about Zen Fire.  There will be a Q&A session at the end, so sign up to attend today!

To register for the webinar, go here and enter your email address:
http://www.bigmiketrading.com/webinars/

To enter for a chance to win the commission free trades, go here and follow the directions:
http://www.bigmiketrading.com/feedback-announcements/3811-big-mike-tradings-1-year-anniversary-webinars-prizes.html

Mike

I primarily trade 3 targets because it fits my personality pretty well.

Target 1 is a quick winner, let’s say 6 ticks on CL. If the trade has trouble reaching target 1, then it’s a red flag for me to look to exit the position immediately and try to minimize losses and then look to re-enter again later.

Target 2 is set based on price action so it varies a lot depending on the day and what price is doing, but I think a good average is probably around 18 ticks. I set it by looking “to the left” on my chart. Where is price likely to run into a possible problem? Target this area to get out.

Target 3 is also based on price action. It is beyond target 2. The thinking is, ok, if we didn’t encounter a problem at target 2’s level then price is actually likely to run further. I again set it based on “looking to the left”, where is the next major area of support or resistance? I would say a good average for target 3 is probably around 50 ticks.

My maximum stop is 24 ticks. Usually the stop is a bit less, but again it always depends on price action. Let’s use worst case scenario. 3 lots @ 24 ticks = 72 ticks of risk. Using my averages above, if my targets are hit I get 6+18+50 which is 74 ticks. So let’s just call it 1:1 risk to reward after commission and a tick of slippage.

Now, my stops are rarely full stops. Usually, like I said above, if price doesn’t “pop” up to that first target almost immediately, I look to get out of the trade with a small loss usually less than 6 ticks. I will re-enter the same trade later if it still looks good. Sometimes I do get trapped and take a full stop, usually what happens is my first target is hit, but then price runs back down against me. I set my stop to the point where I would be “wrong” about the trade. If I were to get out in this scenario — target 1 was hit, so it had some momentum — but target 2 and 3 were not hit, and price is moved against me — if I were to exit here before a ‘full stop’ then I would be doing a disservice to myself, because I would look at the signal and say “this signal is still fine, I should be in this trade”. Sometimes I do this well, sometimes I make a mistake and get out when I shouldn’t only to watch the trade not hit my stop and then turn around and run to targets. I’m not perfect 

Now also target 3 is not often hit. Let’s say I trade five days a week. Target 3 is hit 3 out of 5 days probably. It is those days where usually I can be done for the day in that one single trade when target 1, 2 and 3 were all hit. I set myself up for this on purpose. That is the sole reason target 3 exists for me. CL often moves this much in a move, and when it does, I want to be able to have the opportunity to capture that move and then be done for the day. I realize only a handful of these trades come each week, but when they come I am usually in the trade.

Trading is about probabilities, right? But it’s so much more. It’s also a constant battle with yourself. Deep down. Your desires, your demons. Every trade you put on is a calculated risk. To me, I find that I perform better by reducing the exposure. I carry a pretty good sized risk per-trade, but I do not trade often. Maybe 1-3 times a day. If I have needed to put on five or six trades in a day, usually I am having a bad day.

Hope this helps.


Mike

Introduction

Many developers have accumulated a lot of indicators and trading strategies written in MQL4. To use them in Metatrader 5, they should be converted to MQL5. It’s not so easy to rewrite all programs in MQL5. It would be much easier to convert them, if there were a translation-reference, and better with examples.

In this article I would like to suggest my version of a guide to migrate from MQL4 to MQL5.

Topics Covered

1. Chart Periods
2. Declaring Contants
3. Predefined Variables
4. Account Information
5. Array Functions
6. Checkup
7. Client Terminal
8. Common Functions
9. Conversion Functions
10. Custom Indicators
11. Date and Time Functions
12. File Functions
13. Global Variables
14. Mathematical Functions
15. Object Functions
16. String Functions
17. Technical Indicators
18. Timeseries Access
19. Chart Operations

Read the full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/81

Related posts:

1. Custom Indicators in MQL5
2. MetaTrader 5 – How to call indicators in MQL5
3. Rewrite MQL4 to MQL5 Script

Buy stop, Sell stop and Stop loss orders do NOT guarantee an order will be filled at a certain price. Your specified price is known as the stop price. Once the stop price is met or exceeded, the order becomes a market order. Market orders instruct the broker to fill the order at the next available market price.

The execution price of a buy stop, sell stop or stop loss can vary from the stop price. This occurs most commonly during significant market moves or gaps. Often these price gaps are the result of economic news releases such as the US non-farm payroll report, and may also occur over a weekend when trading is closed. Keep in mind that in a volatile market substantial losses may occur and orders may not be filled as placed.

Source: IBFX

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader Tips – Placing Pending Orders Using Charts
2. MetaTrader Tips – Modify Stop Loss and/or Take Profit Orders
3. MetaTrader Tips – Understanding MetaTrader Charts

MetaTrader 5 Beta Testing

MetaTrader 5 is at the stage of public beta testing.

Please join the testing, and help MetaQuotes to improve the new client terminal for Forex, CFD and Futures, as well as equity markets.

To download MetaTrader 5, please visit http://www.metatraderglobal.com/metatrader-5-download/

To read more about the MetaTrader 5 beta, please visit http://www.metatraderglobal.com/183/public-beta-testing-of-the-metatrader-5-terminal/

Related posts:

1. MetaTrader 5 Beta Download Link
2. Public Beta Testing of the MetaTrader 5 Terminal
3. First broker to use MetaTrader 5 – Alpari Russia