Following the recent release of a beta version of MetaTrader 5 to the public expert advisor vendors have been struggling to get to grips with the new MQL5 language. Being able to read Russian has helped, but even then some vital information has been missing from the available documentation.
Things have now improved somewhat, since an official version of the MQL5 help file translated into English is now available from MetaQuotes. However the frequent Live Updates that the platform has been undergoing recently don't seem to transfer the file to your hard drive automatically. However, if you download the latest version of MetaTrader 5 and reinstall the software you will then be able to access the English technical reference manual via the "Help" menu in MetaEditor.
There is finally even a brief description of the OnTrade() function that we've been desperately waiting for. Unfortunately it's still in Russian! Here is what Google Translate makes of it:
More on MQL5 Documentation Now Available in English (Mostly!)
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Alpari UK have just announced that as long as you have at least 20,000 US dollars to spare you are now able to use it to fund a shiny new Alpari Pro account. Demo accounts are available of course, just like in the United States and Russia, but Alpari UK are more than happy to let you open a real account with real money too, as long as you don't reside in the US or in British Columbia that is. Here's how the announcement put it:
The Alpari Group has partnered with Currenex, one of the world’s leading ECNs, to provide you with a professional and fully customisable Forex trading environment.
With the introduction of two new institutional-level platforms – Alpari Direct and Alpari Direct Pro – you can now access deep Forex liquidity, the fastest execution, competitive pricing and low-cost trading in 50 currency pairs.
It seems I was suffering from a misapprehension when I talked about "different accounts" in previous posts about what I now discover is called the Alpari Pro account. There is only one account. As long as you can stump up the aforementioned $20,000 you can open one whether you are a "retail" client or "institutional". The difference is in the choice of trading platforms. Alpari assume that amateurs will go for the .NET based Alpari Direct platform which has charts and news, whereas the professionals amongst you will choose the Java based Direct Pro platform, which has goodies like depth of market instead.
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MetaTrader 5 has been open for public beta testing for a few days now. After a few trials and tribulations we have now got our first example robot working on MetaTrader 5. If you'd like to know what changes we had to make you can take a look at our MQL5 source code. This is just a quick port retaining the old MQL4 procedural style. We're not using any of the fancy new object oriented features of MQL5 yet.
If you're looking to get started with MQL5 yourself there a few things you need to be aware of. The first problem is that MetaQuotes currently only provide documentation on MQL5 in the Russian language! MQL5.com is still "coming soon", but over on the MQL4 forum fai has used Google Translate to produce a rough English translation. That is a big help, and was sufficient to get us started.
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Following the lead of their Russian cousins Alpari US announced yesterday that they too are now:
Pleased to introduce FX traders to our two new trading platforms, Alpari Direct and Alpari Direct Pro.
The emphasis was a bit different in the US announcement. Currenex get a mention again, but the "ECN" buzzword is conspicuous by its absence. Instead there is a brief explanation of the difference between the two accounts:
Alpari Direct is a platform tailored for individuals wanting to trade higher volumes, at a faster pace and with interbank-level pricing.
Alpari Direct Pro is an advanced institutional-level platform designed for money managers, institutional traders or high net worth individuals wanting to trade high volumes with the fast execution speeds, and sophisticated order management.
The announcement also contained another clue about the way the new accounts will work:
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The long wait is over! You can now download the first publicly available version of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal from the MQL4 forum.
Unfortunately it sounds as though you'll have to wait another 6 months before you will be able to use it in anger on a live account. "The nearest future" that Alpari Russia were talking about last week doesn't mean this week or even this month as far as demo accounts are concerned. A live account certainly sounds as though it won't be arriving until some time next year.
Here is the current beta testing roadmap according to MetaQuotes:
More on MetaTrader 5 Public Beta Available At Last
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Way back on July 15th Alpari UK announced on their website that they:
Will launch two advanced trading platforms by the end of August, offering high-speed and direct access to the international currency market for Alpari clients and other institutional and retail customers. Powered by trading technology provider Currenex®, Alpari Direct Pro will be offered to institutional clients while Alpari Direct will be offered to retail customers.
For some reason that doesn't seem to have gone according to schedule, but it looks as though that launch is not too far off now. Alpari Russia have just announced the availability of their Direct and Direct Pro demo accounts. They say that:
It’s the first company’s step towards providing its Customers with an opportunity to work through the largest electronic trading system (ЕСN) Currenex.
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MetaQuotes announced today on the MQL4 forum that the long awaited MetaTrader 5 client terminal will finally be available for testing by the general public in the very near future. According to the announcement:
The start of the public testing is planned for 12 October, 2009
The new software has been in closed beta testing for almost a month by "30 members of the MQL4 community". The testers have filed "about 300 bug reports", and according to MetaQuotes "most of [the] bugs have been fixed."
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US broker Manhattan Beach Trading (usually known simply as MB Trading) introduced demo ECN MetaTrader 4 accounts way back at the start of this year. They have just announced that at long last their live ECN MT4 accounts are available:
Metatrader is the most popular front-end application in the industry, and MB Trading has attached our ECN execution to the platform. We’ve taken the user-friendly front-end trading interface and added the execution that the market has been looking for. We’ve turned off the deal-desk functionality of the platform and made the executions as true as our systems can handle.
They explain the long wait for this launch as follows:
More on MB Trading Finally Offer Live ECN MetaTrader Accounts
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With the benefit of an apparently hasty translation from the Russian original the MQL4 community website has just published an English language review by one of the MT5 closed beta testers that includes some pictures of the beta version of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal in action.
Apart from the pretty pictures (literally!) the author, Yuriy Zaytsev, explains some of the new features that will be available to expert advisor programmers.
Experienced programmers get more possibilities. For those who liked MQL4 and don't know about OOP developers left the possibility to write in MQL5 using the style of MQL4 without OOP. The difference is in the functionality that should be learned again.
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We've finally received the email from the Forex MegaDroid team that we've been waiting for since July 5th. Albert and John finally announced in an email to their customers on September 20th that:
We have just (17:00 GMT / 12:00 EST) uploaded the latest version of Forex MegaDroid.
The new version includes:
- a revised strategy method which has resulted in better results in
recent testing (trade frequency has improved too)- NFA mode to allow correct operation with NFA-registered brokers
who have adopted the "no hedging" and "FIFO" rules- remote GMT offset checking via our trade server
- a much updated manual
Let's take a look at some of those bullet points shall we?
The MegaDroid team are still advertising on their website that their original system has had "No Losing Trade Since 20th March 2009!" How is it possible to improve on that? Maybe it's something to do with the fact that in live testing it seems to be impossible to reproduce that performance? Maybe they've come up with a tweak to try and reduce some of the big losses that we and other people have been experiencing?
Albert and John certainly seem to be admitting that their robot doesn't take many trades these days. Since we are now forced to use the shiny new version 1.20 of the Droid it seems like a good time to reveal how our live testing has been going with version 1.11 since our last update. Here's all the trades Forex MegaDroid has made on our live account so far in September:
More on Forex MegaDroid Gets NFA FIFO Update – 7 Weeks Late!
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