Expert Advisor
Automated trading
Automated trading is a relatively new but very promising technology. Its main idea lies in transmitting account management to a computer program. Market analysis is also entrusted to them. In other words, these programs completely releases traders from the routine market watching and the execution of trade operations.
Expert Advisor (EA)
Expert Advisor is a computer program based on a set of forex trading signals generated by forex indicators that helps determine whether to buy or sell a currency pair at any one time. Also, an expert adviser may be based on the dependencies and do not contain indicators. Expert Advisor is designed to remove the psychological factor of trading, which can be harmful.
The goal of Expert Advisors is to give traders the possibility to speed up execution of forex trading operations. Expert Advisors can work in automatic mode, saving you from monotonous repetition of various actions. It simplifies work of traders, saving their time. Now you don't have to monitor forex market movement, you only have to turn Expert Advisor on.
Money management, opening of new trade, cutting losses, closure of profitable positions - Expert Advisor can do all these operations for you. But there is one important note: you should know and understand mechanisms and basic features of forex trading and always remember that Expert Advisor is only a tool and you can't fully rely on it. The main element of forex trading is a trader, and Expert Advisor will always be on the second place. Successful trading fully depends on timing and the setting of Expert Advisor, made by you.
MetaQuotes Language Integrated Development Environment (MQL IDE)
The MetaTrader client terminal is supplied with the MetaQuotes Language Integrated Development Environment. This environment consists of the following parts:
With these tools, you can create your own Expert Advisors or use the developments of other programmers. All Expert Advisors are written in the MQL in MetaEditor. Once an Expert Advisor is compiled, it shows up in the client terminal where it can be tested in the Strategy Tester or get running right away.
MetaQuotes Language (MQL)
MQL is a C-like language, which is one of the fastest and most functionally valuable languages in the world. Its flexibility makes it possible to thoroughly verify all parameters of Expert Advisors. This enables developers to automate almost any trading strategy. As far as its speed characteristics are concerned, MQL outperforms all specialized languages for trading strategies and comes second only to such high-level languages as Java and C++. This combination of wide functionality and high performance has made MQL the first choice of a majority of traders.
The development environment is, first and foremost, designed to create Expert Advisors. These programs allow full automation of the analytical and trading processes.
Indicators
Besides Expert Advisors, you can use MQL to create custom indicators and scripts. Custom indicators are full analogues to built-in technical indicators. They are indispensable for analyzing price dynamics of financial instruments and showing trade alerts. And if available technical indicators aren't enough, you can create your own.
Scripts
Scripts are mini programs that automate small frequently repeated actions. Unlike Expert Advisors, scripts are performed only once, not with every tick. For example, a typical script could be a small program closing all open positions for all instruments with a single key.
Automated Trading Championship (ATC)
To demonstrate all possibilities of MQL, MetaQuotes Software hosts the annual Automated Trading Championship. During this competition, participants' Expert Advisors trade without any human interference for three months. Visit the Championship website and learn what amazing results can be achieved with the help of an Expert Advisor.
Every year hundreds of developers submit their Expert Advisors to take part in the Automated Trading Championship to showcase their results. To sum up, choose MetaTrader and you won't have any difficulties using ready-made programs or developing your own with the help of the available knowledge base.