MetaTrader Australia » Forex Trading

MetaTrader Tips – Stop Orders

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 02:09:51 +0000

How do stop orders work in MetaTrader?

Buy stop, Sell stop and Stop loss orders do NOT guarantee an order will be filled at a certain price. Your specified price is known as the stop price. Once the stop price is met or exceeded, the order becomes a market order. Market orders instruct the broker to fill the order at the next available market price.

The execution price of a buy stop, sell stop or stop loss can vary from the stop price. This occurs most commonly during significant market moves or gaps. Often these price gaps are the result of economic news releases such as the US non-farm payroll report, and may also occur over a weekend when trading is closed. Keep in mind that in a volatile market substantial losses may occur and orders may not be filled as placed.

Source: IBFX

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

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 23:10:09 +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

MetaTrader 5 – Guide to Using Technical Indicators in Expert Advisors

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:41:00 +0000

MQL5 for Newbies: Guide to Using Technical Indicators in Expert Advisors

Introduction

An Expert Advisor or indicator that doesn’t use standard technical indicators in its code is rare. They are popular both for the beginners and advanced developers of trading strategies. It isn’t difficult to understand the details of indicator creation; the aim of this article is to help with it. We will consider the use of the functions for working with built-in standard technical indicators.

Fundamentals of Using Functions of Standard Technical Indicators

When being called, each function of a technical indicator creates a handle of the object created (indicator’s instance) with specified input parameters. The purpose of the handle is to assign it with this object. It’s quite sufficient to get the data from the indicator buffer and use it in your own calculations.

Read full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/31

Gain Capital launches Forex.com in Australia

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:45:25 +0000

NEW YORK; LONDON; SYDNEY – April 28, 2010

GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc., a global provider of online trading services specialising in foreign exchange (forex or FX) and contracts for difference (CFDs), today announced the launch of a new service in Australia under its FOREX.com brand.

The new Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulated offering makes FOREX.com’s award winning trading platform and services available to clients in Australia, New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific region. FOREX.com has opened an office in Sydney to provide local customer support and service.

Glenn Stevens, Chief Executive Officer of GAIN Capital commented: “Launching operations in Australia is part of a long term strategic goal to service our clients locally wherever possible. GAIN Capital has a growing global footprint, and we believe our FOREX.com service will be well-received by traders in Australia and New Zealand who are looking for a well-capitalised firm that offers premium trading tools and research, competitive pricing and, of course, a solid reputation.”

The retail forex market has experienced impressive growth in the region in recent years. According to independent research firm Investment Trends, FX trading now accounts for up to 25% of trade volume amongst some providers in the Australian CFD market – a market that has until recently been dominated by equity trading*. GAIN Capital expects this growth to continue as traders look for markets that offer the potential for returns whatever the economic conditions.

Investors in the region will be able to trade in the world’s major currencies including the Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, U.S. Dollar, Euro and British Pound, as well as gold, silver and oil CFD contracts.

Customers will also enjoy access to the company’s full suite of trading tools and services, including:

Real time forex news from Dow Jones
Expert research and trading ideas from a global research team of technical and fundamental analysts
Free educational resources including online guides, courses, webinars and more.
Local funding options and account services such as Australian dollar (AUD) and New Zealand dollar (NZD) denominated trading accounts.

Mike Bermingham, Regional Director of FOREX.com Australia added: “With the opening of our office in Sydney we look forward to providing on-the-ground support to our clients in the region.”

With offices in the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea, the launch of operations in Australia extends the company’s global footprint to six countries. More offices locations are expected to open later this year.

MetaTrader 5 – How to call indicators in MQL5

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:46:24 +0000

In MQL5 there are several ways to call indicators, and they are mostly carried out using IndicatorCreate() and iCustom() functions. Moreover, these functions only return indicator handle, and further work on indicators is done through it. So what is a handle? How to deal with IndicatorCreate() and iCustom() functions? And how your expert will get indicator data? All these questions are covered in this article.

Creating a source file

To begin with our expert, let’s create it’s source file. We’ll do this pretty much as in the MetaEditor4 by calling the MQL5 Wizard from File -> New menu. On the first step select the Expert Advisor and press Next.

Read full article at http://www.mql5.com/en/articles/43

MetaTrader Tips – How are pip values calculated?

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:17:02 +0000

A pip is the smallest increment in any currency pair. In EUR/USD, a movement from 1.0066 to 1.0067 is one pip, so a pip is .0001. In USD/JPY, a movement from 120.45 to 120.46 is one pip, so a pip is .01. How much in dollars is this movement worth, for example, per 100,000 Euros in EUR/USD? How much is one pip worth per 100,000 Dollars in USD/JPY? We will refer to the size, in this case 100,000 units of the base currency, as the ‘Notional Amount’. The formula for calculating a pip value is therefore: (one pip, with proper decimal placement/currency exchange rate) x (Notional Amount).

Using USD/JPY as an example, this yields: (.01/120.46) x USD $100,000 = $8.30 per pip.

Using EUR/USD as an example, we have: (.0001/1.0066) x EUR 100,000 = EUR 9.93. But we want the pip value in USD, so we then must multiply EUR 9.93 x (EUR/USD exchange rate): EUR 9.93 x 1.0066 = $10.00 per pip.

This is in fact a phenomenon you will see with any currency in which the quote currency is USD (such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, or AUD/USD): the pip value is always USD $10.00 per 100,000 currency units. If the pair name ends with something other than USD the pip value per 100,000 currency units will be slightly more or less than USD $10.00.

*The leveraged nature of FX trading means that any market movement will have an equally proportionate effect on your deposited funds. This may work against you as well as for you. The possibility exists that you could sustain a total loss of initial margin funds and be required to deposit additional funds to maintain your position. If you fail to meet any margin call within the time prescribed, your position will be liquidated and you will be responsible for any resulting losses.

Go Markets Price Feed Enhancement – MetaTrader Broker

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:32:43 +0000

Go Markets News: As part of our continued plans to augment and further develop all systems, Go Markets is pleased to announce more enhancements to its Forex price feed. Working in conjunction with our various feed providers we have been able to arrange for improvements which should mean even more favourable pricing, especially during times of increased volatility and lower liquidity.

Sign up for a Free GoMarkets MetaTrader Demo account Today
Open a Live GoMarkets MetaTrader account

About Go Markets

Go Markets Pty Ltd is an Australian registered company offering a wide range of financial products to an extensive client base both here in Australia and overseas. Go Markets is an ASIC registered company (AFSL licence number 254963) that is regulated to offer financial services including Securities, Derivatives (including CFDs) and Margin FX.

To be able to offer a high level of service as standard to all of our clients we have entered into partnerships with various financial institutions that specialise in the global securities and derivatives industry.

The BID and the ASK Explained

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:56:05 +0000

All Forex quotes have two parts, the BID and the ASK.

The Bid is the price at which you (as the trader) will open a sell. The Ask is the price at which you will open a buy. The difference between the bid and the ask price is known as the spread.

Interbank FX Margin Calls Explained: What Sets IBFX Apart

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:54:21 +0000

IBFX Forex margin calls are significantly different than margin calls in other markets. We do not call our clients to warn them their equity has fallen to dangerously low levels. The leveraged nature of Forex trading does not allow time for a traditional margin call.

Accounts trading with 100:1 margin levels are subject to a margin call when the equity in the account is equal to or lower than 50% of the margin posted. Once this unfortunate situation occurs the Interbank FX trader 4 platform closes trades automatically. Trades are closed in order beginning with the largest loss trades are closed until the equity in the account exceeds the 50% threshold.

IBFX ‘s margin call policy is in place for the protection of our clients. Margin calls are made with the intent of preventing a client’s account from falling into a negative balance situation. Our margin call policy does not eliminate the potential risk that losses will exceed the amount of the deposit. Margin calls are merely our attempt to prevent such unfortunate situations.

The leveraged nature of FX trading means that any market movement will have an equally proportional effect on your deposited funds. This may work against you as well as for you. The possibility exists that you could sustain a total loss of initial margin funds and be required to deposit additional funds to maintain your position. If you fail to meet any margin call within the time prescribed, your position will be liquidated and you will be responsible for any resulting losses.

Free IBFX Demo Account
Open a Live IBFX Account

Trading in the off-exchange retail foreign currency market is one of the riskiest forms of investment available.

MetaTrader Tips – Understanding MetaTrader Charts

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:47:55 +0000

The current price shown on an MT4 chart is the bid price. When looking at a price bar or candle, you must add the spread to the high bid price to know what the high ask price would have been, or add the spread to the low bid price to know what the low ask would have been.

If you are in a sell (in at the Bid out at the Ask), you would not see the candle reach your stop loss if you are taken out of the trade. For example with a stop loss of 1.4580 on the EURUSD once the chart reached 1.4578 (2 pip spread) you would be taken out of the trade at 1.4580. Your take profit would not trigger until the ask price hits. For example with a take profit of 1.4540 on the EURUSD once the chart reached 1.4538 (2 pip spread) you would be taken out of the trade at 1.4540. These examples are based on our spread shown under normal market conditions. Our spreads are not fixed and will fluctuate with news or other high / low volume conditions.

If you are in a buy (in at the Ask and out at the Bid), you will see the bid price on the chart.