MetaTrader Global » MetaTrader General News

Hotspot May 2010 Forex volume over $1 Trillion…

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:31:51 +0000

I know it’s a bit late yet this hasn’t been published yet so what the hell.

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/

Retail forex trading grows by 16% in 2009, Hedge Fund volumes decline

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:05:22 +0000

Global currency trading volume declined 6 percent to just under $100 trillion last year, after setting records in 2007 and 2008, as hedge funds placed fewer trades than in previous years, Greenwich Associates said.

Trading by fund managers fell 23 percent in 2009, leading the declines among the 1,497 corporate and institutional customers surveyed by Greenwich Associates in North America, Europe and Asia, according to the Stamford, Connecticut-based financial-market research company. The drop was partially offset by trading at retail platforms, which grew 16 percent, and by corporations, which rose 10 percent.

“Hedge funds have been a major driver of FX growth for the last several years and when their volume slows down, and it did a lot, the market as a whole feels it,” said Peter D’Amario, a Greenwich Associates consultant in Stamford. “You haven’t seen the opportunities that are generating a need to trade. Reduced volatility has reduced opportunity.”

Foreign-exchange trading volumes dropped as market stability returned in 2009, following the unprecedented volatility of 2008, as financial system turmoil spurred an increase in activity among companies and large financial institutions.

Foreign-exchange volatility, a measure of risk implied by option prices, reached a 19-month low in April, a JP Morgan Chase & Co. index showed, after trading the highest level since at least 1992 in 2008. Options traders expected on April 15 that currencies of the Group of Seven industrialized nations would fluctuate by an annualized 10.47 percent in three months, the lowest since September 2008. It reached as high as 26.55 percent on Oct. 24, 2008.

Source: Bloomberg by Ben Levisohn

Changing the External Parameters of MQL4 Programs without Restarting

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:30:18 +0000

Anybody who has ever launched an EA or an indicator for execution, faced the possibility to preliminarily set up external parameters that often underlay the success of the program. There is a possibility to change parameters during the program operation. But how can that be done without initialization? In some cases, this may affect managing the previously opened orders. In this article, we try to solve this problem as flexibly as possible.

Problem Statement

We will consider this problem for Expert Advisors rather than for indicators. For indicators, this problem is not so acute, although the methods are universal and you can apply them to any programs.

In the classical EA writing, the context must be created at every tick. There can be two kinds of contexts – the context of status and trading context. The context of status contains the current states of indicators and other elements underlying the decision making on opening/closing/modifying orders. Trading context contains the information about open orders, their statuses and quantities. After trading context has been analyzed, traders make decisions about what to do with their orders. Contexts are divided by types conditionally. This classification has been introduced for convenience.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/724

MetaTrader Tips – Expert Advisor Back Testing

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:48:14 +0000

To back test an expert advisor (EA) follow the steps below.

Open the Strategy Tester window by pressing Ctrl+R
Select the expert advisor you wish to back test
Select the symbol you wish to back test
Select a testing model (every tick model recommended)
Set a testing period
Press Start

Reasons To Consider MetaTrader Expert Advisors

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:46:09 +0000

The Foreign Exchange (or Forex) trading uses currency markets from a variety of countries to create a trading market where billions and billions are traded and exchanged daily. If you aim to profit from Forex trading, then you would need to own every single pip that you can get. But this is easier said than done, specially if you are new to the Forex market. 90% of traders lose their money on the Forex market because they let the rest 10% of traders to earn this money. It occurs because traders-beginners, keen by passion, rush to trade without having a Forex trading strategy. Even if they have a Forex trading strategy this strategy is usually not tested and also there is a human factor. That is why it is necessary to use MetaTrader Expert Advisors.

MetaTrader Expert Advisors or MetaTrader EAs are mechanical trading systems which completely automate the trading process on the Forex market by using unique Forex trading strategies. These trading robots trade under the control of the MetaTrader 4 trading platform. The robots operate 24 hours, non-stop. Because of this, you never miss an opportunity to get the trades.

MetaTrader EAs are very easy to acquire and use. As soon as you purchase one, all you need to do is download it, install it into MetaTrader 4, set your preferences and run the program. The important thing to note is that you will need to have an account with a forex broker that supports MetaTrader 4. The MetaTrader 4 platform has the built-in MetaTrader Expert Advisorsbased on the technical analysis, such as MetaTrader indicator. There are hundreds of forex brokers who use MetaTrader around the globe, and a couple of them should fit your trading requirements perfectly.

Recipes for Neuronets

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:51:40 +0000

Not so long ago – at the dawn of technical analysis when by far not all traders had computers – people appeared that tried to predict future prices using formulas and regularities invented by them. They were often called charlatans. Time went on, methods of information processing became more complicated, and now there can hardly be traders indifferent to technical analysis. Any beginning trader can easily utilize charts, various indicators, search for regularities.

The number of forex-traders grows daily. Together with that their requirements for market analyzing methods grow. One of such “relatively” new methods is the use of theoretically fuzzy logics and neural networks. We see that topics devoted to these questions are being actively discussed on various thematic forums. They do exist, and will go on existing. A human that entered the market will hardly ever leave it. While it is the challenge to one’s intelligence, brain and strength of will. That is why a trader never ceases to study something new and to use various approaches in practice.

In this article we will analyze basics of neuronet creation, will learn about the notion of Kohonen neural net and will talk a little about methods of trading optimization. This article is first of all intended for traders who are only at their beginning in studying neuronets and principles of information processing.

To read the full article, please visit: http://articles.mql4.com/783

India Based MetaTrader Forex Broker

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:27:07 +0000

Looking for a MetaTrader Broker with a local office in India?

MetaTrader India recomends Alpari Forex (India) Pvt. Ltd. is a company formed under the Indian Companies Act, 1956.

To find out more and to open an account visit http://www.metatrader.in/metatrader-forex-broker/

Alpari offers Online Trading in Forex via MetaTrader 4 (MT4), one of the world’s most recognised Forex trading platforms for stability and reliability. MT4 is highly regarded and very popular among traders as they enjoy a variety of useful features including Expert Advisors and custom indicators, a complete technical analysis package, professional charting tools and quotes history for back testing.

Alpari MetaTrader 4 Platform

Fast execution
Floating leverage up to 1:500
FSA regulation and FSCS protection of client funds*
Trade from real-time charts
Compatibility with MT4 EAs
Available on a Micro or Classic Account

To find out more and to open an account visit http://www.metatrader.in/metatrader-forex-broker/

What Is Automated Trading

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:12:03 +0000

Modern technologies allow us not only to trade in financial markets using personal computers, but we can fully automate a trading system now. Using a computer program you can relieve yourself from the routine of analyzing financial markets and performing trades.

Our client terminal has all functions that allow you to develop, test and use your trading system. The development environment named MQL4 is integrated into the terminal. MQL4 consists of MetaEditor, Strategy Tester and Compiler.

Using these tools, you can develop:

Expert Advisors – programs that allow you to automate fully both analyzing and trading processes. Expert Advisors can relieve you from the routine of analyzing financial markets and performing trades;
Custom Indicators – applications similar to the embedded technical indicators that will help you to analyze markets;
Scripts – programs that automate single frequently repeated operations. For example, using a script you can close all positions by a single keystroke.

It is rather easy to develop trading systems using the development environment of MQL4. In MetaEditor, you will find detailed help topics and description of the programming language. Having developed your own trading system, you will be able to test it on historical data in the Strategy Tester. This can allow you to evaluate your trading system’s profitability, risk factor, and stability in a quick and easy way.

Naturally, it may be difficult to start developing one’s own trading system from scratch. The detailed description of the programming language is often insufficient for this. To make your initial steps to creating a trading system, you can visit the MQL4 Community website – www.mql4.com. This site represents a place where developers of trading systems meet, develop strategies, publish their articles and share their codes. You will find at the website of MQL4.Community:

Detailed description of the MQL4 programming language – docs.mql4.com
If you have any questions about any elements of the MQL4, visit this section. You will surely find the detailed description of the language construction you are interested in.
A huge database of ready-made Expert Advisors, technical indicators and scripts – codebase.mql4.com
Many developers publish their codes for free. The Code Base counts hundreds of useful Expert Advisors, indicators and scripts. You will find something interesting there for sure.
Articles about various problems of programming trading systems – articles.mql4.com
Developing a trading system, you may face one or another problem. Try to find a ready solution in the Articles section. Another developer might have experienced your problem before and has already published a solution for it. You can publish your own articles devoted to solving various problems. This will get you fame and money – authors are paid for their materials published.
Forum of developers of trading systems – forum.mql4.com
If you can?t find a solution for your problem in any sections described above, you can ask your question in the forum. Thousands of people participate in discussions, they will surely help you. Moreover, you can use the forum for just mixing with Community members or sharing your successes in the sphere of development of Expert Advisors.

As any other new phenomenon, automated trading has its critics and skeptics. However, automated trading is quite a serious technology. Visit the website of the Automated Trading Championship (championship.mql4.com) and you will see it yourself. This is an annual championship with total prize pool of USD$80,000. Hundreds of developers from all over the world participate in it. Their Expert Advisors operate fully independently within three months. Three Winners will share the total prize amount at the end of the contest. The Championship will showcase Expert Advisors and automated trading.

On the Championship website, you will find much useful practical information and see how different trading systems work under identical conditions. In the News section, various materials devoted to development and use of Expert Advisors are published on a daily basis. If you feel something to be unclear, you may ask any Participants about this. Moreover, you can participate in this Championship yourself and get one of three money prizes and the title of The Best Developer of Expert Advisors!

Tips for choosing a MetaTrader Expert Advisor

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:07:35 +0000

It is important to choose a forex trading platform that meets your requirements. There are different types of platforms that provide different facilities. The platform that you choose depends on your approach. Some platforms provide high level of details. They provide highly complex charts and indicators and complete information about the markets. If you are an expert in the FX market, this is what you would expect and this is what will help you to make trading better decisions. On the other hand, if you are new to this market, complex indicators and charts can only confuse you and make you edgy. So, you might require a forex platform that provides a simplified data and gives away tips that are understandable to even a layman.

MetaTrader is one platform that is highly popular and is used by many traders around the world. Its popularity has increased so much that there are many experts that have designed MetaTrader Expert Advisors (EA) and it can be a massive task to choose the best MetaTrader EA. There are basically 2 categories of advisors. Follow these simple but effective tips to choose the best MetaTrader EA.

Paid MetaTrader EA are the ones that charge the traders for the services that they provide. These platforms are made for commercial reasons and you have to purchase them from the developer. Even if they are available on the internet, you have to pay for them in order to download them. Paid MetaTrader EAs cannot afford to give out false tips as when traders are paying for the service, they expect excellent tips. One way to evaluate the paid EA is to go through the reviews of that EA. Consult other traders as to what they have to say about the platform. But, be aware about the false reviews that many companies have written for themselves.

The next category is the free MetaTrader EA. This is freely available in the market. You can even download them freely from the internet. Many traders themselves develop platforms for their use and make it available for others. There are many recognized free EAs. One must be very careful while selecting a free version because the creator might not have taken enough efforts to make the forex EA as effective as some of the paid versions. The best way to evaluate the free MetaTrader EA is to look at the number of users using that EA, the reviews of that EA and so on. If you are new to the market and are not doing FX trading full time, there is no harm in going for the free version particularly if you are not keen on shelling out extra bucks.

Here is a link to where you can find some free EAs – http://codebase.mql4.com/experts

What is MetaTrader?

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:29:53 +0000

MetaTrader refers to a group of software applications that help brokers and traders to trade currency. They also use MetaTrader programs to trade CFD contracts and other markets such as spot gold and silver (bullion). MetaTrader is developed by ‘MetaQuotes Software’ a Russian company. You as a trader may use one of the following MetaTrader platforms to trade.

MetaTrader Client Terminal: You need to install it on your computer and then use it to view and analyze the market. You can also use it to enter trades. In order to be able to trade, you need to open a demo or live account with a broker. The client terminal is a freeware for end users. This platform supports automated trading.

MetaTrader Mobile and Smartphone: Unlike the Client Terminal these are not free. You use these versions of MetaTrader to trade through your PDA or cell phone.

MetaTrader MultiTerminal: The MultiTerminal enables you to trade on more than one account at the same time. This version of MetaTrader is more useful for money managers and who want to trade on more than one trading account with the same platform. The MultiTerminal currently does not support automated trading.

The one platform that the majority of users are interested in is the ‘MetaTrader Client Terminal’. I call it MetaTrader or MT4 from now on.

As mentioned in the preceding paragraphs MetaTrader 4 or MT4 is a freeware. You can download it from MetaQuotes website. In order to be able to trade with MT4 you need to open an account with a broker. You may also obtain a free copy of MetaTrader from your broker when you open a live or demo account with them. You can nowadays open a demo account at no charge with almost all of those brokers that support MT4 as their trading platform.

Why MetaTrader?

There are a few reasons that many brokers and also traders use MT4 as their trading platform. Here are some of those reasons.

MT4 is a charting and trading tool at the same time. You can see charts, analyze the market and then place orders with the same platform. There is no need to get a charting tool from another company. The charting tools are free so you can see the charts and analyze the market at no extra charge.

MT4 comes with communication tools. For example the broker can post market analysis, news, and other types of messages through MT4. This feature eliminates or reduces the need to communicate via email or phone messages.
MT4 supports automated trading. You can obtain tools to automate your trades or generate trading signals.
MT4 comes with a programming language and a platform to develop programs with that language. You can develop your own tools to trade automatically, or analyze the market. The MT4 programming language is called MQL or MetaQuotes Language. It is similar to ‘C’ but equipped with several functions that enable you to easily automate your analysis and/or trades.

There may be a lot of other reasons that you use MT4 as your trading tool.

Expert Advisor Resources

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:28:27 +0000

There are a vast number of people who are looking for a good genuine forex expert advisor (trading robot).
In my knowledge, nothing has made a more profound innovation for an individual trader who likes trading from home, more than Meta Trader Expert Advisors.

MetaTrader expert advisors are automated programs that will place trades on a traders’ behalf using a complex preset algorithm and trading strategies.

The market is being flooded with these programs with different trading systems applied to them from the different originators.
Some boast of good results, but do read of their disclaimers should anyone lose while using their forex trading software program.

Having a good expert advisor for trading is a help you might not want to pass up. They’re designed to simplify the whole trading experience and make it easier for you to make money trading but like all trading there are losing trades as well.

It can actually put your trading on ‘autopilot’ and make trades while you’re in bed asleep.
Please remember During Technological crisis, orders may not be filled as placed. Trading on a particular electronic trading system may differ from trading on other electronic trading systems, or other market systems. If you undertake transactions on an electronic trading system, you will be exposed to risk associated with the system, including the failure of hardware and software. The result of any system failure may be that your order is either not executed according to your instructions or is not executed at all.

In the last several years, with more advanced computers that are available nowadays, MetaTrader Expert Advisor (known as Forex EA) programs have given the ordinary person more capability to trade Forex like a professional.

However there’s the problem…

See, trading is not simple. We believe you need to learn the basics of forex trading and then you need to have knowledge how to perform your forex trading strategies without miscalculations and, sometimes without emotion. We believe that’s difficult to do for the majority of people. Emotional trading is riddled with mistakes following with frustration and loss of money.

Trading as a human means we’re subject to human shortcomings. Like the inability to watch 12 indicators at once. Or monitor fibs, pivots, or support and resistance levels and then make a decision to trade, all within about half a second.

Having an automated forex trading strategy executed by an Expert Advisor program is the solution for this. An EA is basically a robot program with a trading strategy. It does not deviate from the written strategy (like people do).
It consistently and unemotionally follows the strategy.

You may possibly build your own Forex trading strategy but it’s not really necessary with so many well programmed trading systems on the market.

Each Forex trading system should have a special setup, entry point, exit point in the forex market and each software program accomplishes these steps mechanically.

The rules of these systems determine when a stop-loss and profit target level for each trade. Automating these rules is the single most benefit to using a MetaTrader Expert Advisor .

MetaTrader (MT4) Forex Trading Strategies

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:18:42 +0000

We believe the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) forex trading platform is one of the best and most comprehensive trading and charting platforms available today. Many forex brokers use the MetaTrader 4 platform for their trading platform. There are many MT4 expert advisors (EAs) and trading indicators that easily plug into the MetaTrader charts and that makes it much easier for traders to find and use strategies specifically designed for it. You simply copy the expert advisors and/or trading indicator files into the appropriate directories and restart your MetaTrader 4 charts and that’s it. Then you click the menus in the MT4 charts, pick your EAs or indicators and they will automatically function in your charts. Another great thing about these EAs, is they work around the clock, 24 hours a day, 5 days a week and you don’t need to look for trading setups. That’s the job of these “robots”. When they see a setup, they automatically open and close your trades for you. You will need to have a dedicated computer you can leave on during the week so these programs can execute trades for you. If you shut your computer off at night, you WILL miss trades. Please remember that during Technological crisis, orders may not be filled as placed. Trading on a particular electronic trading system may differ from trading on other electronic trading systems, or other market systems. If you undertake transactions on an electronic trading system, you will be exposed to risk associated with the system, including the failure of hardware and software. The result of any system failure may be that your order is either not executed according to your instructions or is not executed at all.

There are thousands of free expert advisors (EAs) and trading indicators to choose from and they’re all over the internet and forex trading forums. The downside with many of the free MT4 EAs and Idicators is that there’s a lack of documentation and learning to use them can be time consuming and difficult. But if you don’t mind playing with different settings and have the time to learn them, they can be a great way to make some very profitable trades.

There are also some great ebooks out there that supply their own expert advisors (EAs) and trading indicators that include all the documentation and examples to successfully use the trading strategy for maximum profits.

MetaTrader 4 Plugins You Must Have

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:59:17 +0000

Post not found, please view the related posts below. Related posts:MetaTrader 4: The Worlds Number 1 Forex Dealing Program Using Neural Networks In MetaTrader Decorating Indicators – MetaTrader 4 MetaTrader 4 – The World’s Most Common Trading Software What Is Automated Trading

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What is the best way to learn forex trading?

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:50:11 +0000

I would suggest moving on to the MetaTrader 4 Trading platform this is the platform the majority of retail forex traders use. Trade on a demo until you are comfortable then move on to a live micro account and trade with 0.10c a pip until you can make profit regular and then only then increase your investment.

MetaTrader 4 Free Download – http://www.metaquotes.net/downloads

New Version: MetaTrader 4 Mobile Terminal Build 226

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:33:11 +0000

From MetaQuotes 2009.08.17 Fixed error that occurred when changing the account password. Related posts:New MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal Build 226 Public Beta Testing of the MetaTrader 5 Terminal What is the best way to learn forex trading? What is MetaTrader? MetaTrader Tips – Minimize Terminal Window

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