MetaTrader Global » Futures

MetaTrader 5 – New Opportunities with MetaTrader 5

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:44:07 +0000

A little bit of history

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

Download MetaTrader 5

MetaTrader Global — Thu, 13 May 2010 04:04:34 +0000

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/

MetaTrader Tips – Symbols Sets

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:20:34 +0000

You can create several sets of symbols and switch between them.

This can be very useful if you work with different groups of symbols (currency pairs, futures, etc.). This allows you to hide all “excessive” symbols and save your favourite symbols.

First broker to use MetaTrader 5 – Alpari Russia

MetaTrader Global — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:05:19 +0000

Recently, Alpari Russia announced the upcoming availability of MetaTrader 5 for its clients. Real trading accounts will be available after the general public beta testing of MetaTrader 5. As we know, the new version of MetaTrader will allow to trade not only forex but options, futures and equities. This means that brokers who offer trading in such financial instruments can also use MetaTrader 5 as their trading platform.

Some traders believe that after Alpari, the MetaTrader 5 terminal will be used by FXOpen or Forex4you because both of them are known for being very innovative in their approach to traders and both rely heavily on MetaTrader and its attractiveness ( for example the NFA ruling compliance support ). Today, more than 300 brokers all over the world already use MetaTrader 4. With MetaTrader 5, this number will probably grow higher.

- Read the announcement here

- Watch the video Alapri prepared about MetaTrader 5 (in Russian) here

Source: http://metatrader5.blogspot.com/2009/10/alpari-russia-is-first-broker-to-use.html

Metatrader 5 Development – Interview with Stanislav Starikov

MetaTrader Global — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:29:15 +0000

The new Metatrader 5 platform and the MQL5 language are nearing the end of development and will be probably launched in fall 2009. MT5 will replace MT4 and the new code is completely written from scratch. The bad point is that MT5 will be not compatible with MT4. This means that every indicator and expert advisor needs to be rewritten to work with the Metatrader 5 platform.

Metatrader 5 features

High performance and outstanding working speed
3 chart-types, 21 timeframes and over 70 analytical tools
5 order types and 4 execution modes available for trading operations on different markets (forex, options, futures and stocks)
Advanced built-in reports on all trading activities
MQL5 development environment with new IntellySence system and more advanced strategy tester

Interview with Stanislav Starikov, leading programmer of Metatrader 5

Q: Stanislav, there are several topics in forums about the development of a new platform MetaTrader 5 and the MQL5. Could you, please, tell us about this?

A: Really, the development of the new trading platform is in full swing. And MQL5 development is its closing stage. And like the previous time with MQL4, we are going to release the development environment MQL5 earlier than the client terminal, so that traders can get acquainted with all new possibilities of our language.

Q: And what are its new possibilities?

A: First of all, it includes new data types, a new structure, classes and, in this respect, the object-oriented programming. We also introduced projects and considerably increased the program execution speed.

Q: Please, tell us about the new data type. What for are they introduced in MQL5?

A: In MQL4 we had three main data types: INT, DOUBLE and STRING. Now we have added new types: CHAR, SHORT, LONG, FLOAT, STRINGS became Unicode. We also added STRUCTURES and CLASSES. What for are we doing this? In programming languages like C++ such data types already exist. And now it is much easier to transfer source codes written in C++ into our MQL5.

For example, the winner of the championship 2007 (Better) told in his interview that he developed his EA in C++ and after debugging it he transferred the code into MQL4. Now all this will be much easier to do. Besides, already in MQL4 we included the possibility of using Windows API functions or functions from other DLL’s. Very often such functions may be of these structure types. And now we made such calls easier, meaning, we made working with MQL5 easier.

Q: What are CLASSES and Object-oriented programming?

A: A CLASS is the same STRUCTURE, but with added functions for processing data of this STRUCTURE. It allows hiding functionality, i.e. all these FUNCTIONS inside a CLASS; And a program now can be constructed out of CLASS OBJECTS like out of bricks. First of all, it simplifies programming, i.e. it becomes easier to write such programs, to read such programs and to modify such programs in the future. And consider the situation when Programs become larger and larger. In this situation CLASSES will be of great help.

Q: Could you please tell us about PROJECTS?

A: As I have already said, programs are becoming more and more complicated. In this respect, it is reasonable to divide a source text into several files. For example, one file for each CLASS. PROJECTS introduced into MQL5 allow assembling a ready program out of these files. This is also a great help in writing a program.

Q: Stanislav, you have said that you increased MQL5 program execution speed. How did you manage to do this? Well, in MQL4 the speed was rather high.

A: Tell you the truth, we had reserves. Actually, in MQL4 a compiler gets an interpretable byte code. In MQL5 we also get a byte code, but like in >NET during the code uploading, this byte code is transformed into a native x86 code, i.e. processor commands. So as a result, the program in a native language works much faster than any byte code. Moreover, we invested much time and effort into the question of code optimization. Thus we managed to speed up the program execution.

Q: Can you tell how much higher the program execution speed will be in MQL5 as compared to that in MQL4?

A: No, I can’t tell this right now, because we haven’t conducted objective tests yet. But I can tell for sure, that the speed will be several times higher. Well, wait for news.

You can watch the interview and ask questions to Stanislav here.

Written by Glen Gotsk

MetaTrader 4 Review

MetaTrader Global — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:00:30 +0000

MetaTrader 4 is a professional online trading software platform which is designed to help traders by providing them broker services in the Forex, Futures and CFD markets. It is stand alone software platform and no other platform is required while using this software. This software doesn’t operate on Windows 95. The platform is renowned worldwide for its high standards of business performance and is currently being used by over more than thousand companies.

MetaTrader 4 provides several different installations for the account management like MetaTrader 4 Client, MetaTrader 4 Mobile, and MetaTrader MultiTerminal. The latter allows one to simulate multiple accounts at a time. The client version is great and provides trade operations and technical analysis in real-time mode. The MetaTrader 4 platform has a user-friendly front-end trading interface, which is liked by the customers. It provides features like technical analysis, charting and also gives expert advisors to help the users develop their own trading strategies. It helps is analysis of the price movement on the market by means of three market factors which are price, volumes, and, in case of study of futures contracts’ market, of an open interest. It provides vast number of technical indicators which simplifies mathematical calculation, based on prices or volume or both. The figures received are used for forecasting price changes. Some of these are Accelerator/Decelerator Oscillator, Envelopes, Force Index (FRC), Momentum, Relative Strength Index (RSI), Relative Vigor Index (RVI) and many more. Technical analysis also includes trading systems which is a set of instructions which advise opening or closing trading positions based on the results of technical analysis. The most important aspect of trading system is determining an exit point. It is necessary to identify the level at which one must stop trading so as not incur further losses. This is done easily with the help of trading system. Metatrader 4 provides the ability to hold offsetting positions and also allows fast acquisition of news information and have different order execution technologies.

MetaTrader4 has numerous advantages over other platforms. It provides Coverage of financial markets like Forex, Futures and CFD markets. It is very reliable and safer than some others. In the case of damage to the historical data, the complex has backup and restoration systems. To provide safety the data exchanged is cripted by 128 bit keys. A built-in DDoS-attacks guard system raises the stability of operation of the server and the system as a whole. New protocols are being introduced which reduces the demands on datalink and their operational cost. The platform supports different languages and a multilingual pack is includes in the package. It allows integration with web services and the platform possesses a wide range of customizable functions. The server API allows the user to customize the work of platform to meet their requirements. API helps in creating applications of integration into other systems and extending the functionality of the server. All these features and advantages makes it an obvious choice.