Saturday, April 25, 2009

Constant Volume Charts (Tick Charts) Using Metatrader 4

Many of my ebook and newsletter customers have emailed me about the post about tick or constant volume charts I made a few weeks ago. It seems that there is a great interest to learn how to trade and use this type of charts but most people use trading platforms that do not allow this to be done. In particular, most of us use the metatrader 4 platform to trade the spot forex market and this platform in particular does not allow volume charts. The reason why metatrader does not have this functionality is because the program itself does not store tick data (which is vital for the construction of these charts). However, by exploring the web a lot, I have been able to find a practical solution to our problem.

By using an indicator that saves ticks and an indicator that then plots them according to a fixed amount or volume per bar, you can generate tick charts on metatrader 4 completely free. At the end of the process you will have a chart that can be used for the same things as a time chart, you can drop indicators on it, expert advisors, etc. The main draw back with this approach is that only forward charts can be drawn because metatrader does not have any previous saved tick data. I am working on importing tick data for long periods of time so that we can at least visually backtest strategies using constant volume charts. Anyway, the whole process is better explained by the following video. I'll be waiting for your comments !
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If you want to find more about commercial and free automated trading systems I have tested and reviewed as well as which experts I am actually trading please consider buying my ebook on automated trading or subscribing to my weekly newsletter to receive updates and check the live and demo accounts I am running with several expert advisors. I hope you enjoyed the article !

2 comments:

johnt said...

Hi, your video helped me a lot with metatrader. But I still have some problem. This volume chart doesn't work on historical data. Do you know why and how to make it work? It is important because I need it for backtesting.

Daniel said...

Hi Johnt, volume charts do not work in backtesting. If you want any EA to operate on them it has to be on live or forward testing. This is an inherent limitation of the mt4 platform.

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