Trader’s arsenal - from beginner to professional

Hello ladies and gentlemen, Forex traders!

In a difficult business of trading every detail is important and today we will try to optimize routine processes. We’ll look at how you can make trading more convenient, while you do not have to buy a new computer.

In today’s review, we will touch on information indicators. They are used in one way or another by all traders - from scalpers M1 to long-term ones working on day charts. From time to time, you need some spread indicator or a convenient and practical info sheet with all the necessary data, but where can I find them? You start searching the net, viewing topics in forex forums, try to compile the MQL file in a new terminal build, which is not always the case. Now you will not have any questions about where to get info indicators - we solved this issue for you.

What are info indicators and what kinds of them exist

Information indicators are a separate group of technical forex indicators, they do not directly help in any way to make a decision about buying, selling an asset or quitting a deal. They have a slightly different task. Info indicators provide the trader with all the necessary information on the trading instrument, the status of the account (profit or loss in points, percents, deposit currency, drawdown), opening time, closing of trading sessions, time before the closing of the current candle, data on spreads, swaps and so on. In one word, everything that is necessary for comfortable work in the financial markets. To process in mind this, without exaggeration, colossal information flow of various data is inconvenient, and it is not necessary - there is a huge number of assistants. We will get acquainted with them today.

In this review, the following types of information indicators are mentioned:

• Time indicators;
• Indicators of news;
• Profit indicators;
• Lot calculation indicators;
• Indicators of spread, swap;
• Indicators of candles of an older timeframe;
• Information panels;
• Other useful indicators.

They are all relevant to the MetaTrader4 terminal, installed according to standard instructions, most files are provided with open source - especially for programmers and all those who like to see how the indicators are written. You can download all the indicators from the link at the end of the article, attachments are in one folder, there are hundreds of titles there.

Time indicators

“Time is money,” said Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States. Time is one of the most valuable resources – we constantly have a lack of it, you can not regain it, you can only use it. In trading, time is one of the most fundamental things - since after opening a position, regardless of the working timeframe and strategy, you need to wait for the result – either the position closes on the stop order, or the price goes in your direction and you will make a profit. And your expectation can be from several minutes (if you are a scalper), up to several months (if you work on D1 or higher timeframes).

Indicators showing/counting time are represented by a huge number: from different time bars (consider the time before the candle closes) to session indicators. The latter will be relevant for intraday traders: as a rule, most strategies are designed for some trend movements, and they are not round the clock, but usually at the time of London and American sessions. In turn, the time of the Asian session - when market movements are minimal - is used for other trading strategies, as well as for many advisers - night scalpers. Below are a few examples of such indicators.

b-clock_TRO_MODIFIED_VERSION - simple indicator, shows the time until the candle closes.

iStockTimes_v1_5 – a whole panel, with not only time but also spread, swap, ATR.

Time Universal (Time Universal_fix) - indicator shows the closing time of the candle that you need. It will not change the data when switching timeframes. In addition, the font, color, and size are selected by the user.

i-Sessions-A is one of the many session indicators. In each new version, there are additional functions, for example in this one - movement tracking (in points) for each session.

Xi-AsianSession – indicator specializes in displaying only the Asian session, when market movements are minimal - a paradise for all sorts of night scalpers. I will only say that there are a lot of similar modifications, there are indicators for both the London and American sessions.

The most well-known indicators of this type are Candle Time and Spread, Forex Market Hours GMT, i-Sessions, Market Hours, Xi-AsianSession.

News indicators

“There is still some time left before the news release” - such information can be seen on the websites of many brokers. Indeed, sometimes very important news come out, and the instrument movement reverses, and this trend lasts for months. For those who trade within a day following the news, using economic calendars or special indicators is fundamentally important. Agree with me: opening deal five minutes before the decision on the rate of the Fed or the ECB with a short stop of 10 points is silly: even if you guess the direction of the news pulse, an expanding spread, most likely, will close your position where there will be no price.

FFCal is unquestionably one of the most famous news indicators. In general, more than a dozen modifications of this indicator exist, as well as other news indicators written on its basis. They can be downloaded from the link at the end of the article.

NewsInfo is a very fundamental and multifunctional news indicator. In one of the versions, there is an opportunity to choose one of four (!) Sites-suppliers of forex news. There is also such a tendency recently: the news indicators not only show the news but also have additional functionality to disconnect the advisors, whose work can be damaged by the news volatility.

Truly News Indicator - feature of the indicator is that you can choose to display news on certain currencies (that is, if you are trading on GBPJPY, then the news on USDCNH is of no use to you), and also choose the value of news (high, medium, low) that will be displayed on the information board. In addition, checkboxes on the chart show news candles - very convenient.

Another nuance with the setting of news indicators.

a) Usually, the trader learns about the upcoming news from the economic calendar. Since everyone lives in different corners of the planet and everywhere has his different time, you need to determine the correct local time of news release, because the news appears just once. As a rule, in all calendars there is a setting for the time zone – both in the popular English calendar from ForexFactory, and in the calendar from our site.

b) Next, we need to check whether it’s true or not, the time of the news. You should better take an important news (decision on% rates, speech of the heads of the Central Bank) - when some significant movement can appear on the market. We look at the time until the news on the calendar, look at the time until the news on the indicator. The last one can either show the exit time, or count down the time until the news, they also can mark the exit on the chart with arrows, flags, lines, inscriptions, or lines with inscriptions – whatever the trader needs. Everything can be regulated and selected.

c) And, at the time of the news release, you will see an atypically large M1 candle on the chart (if you looked at the minute timeframe), you will see a strong spread of the spread (if the account is with a floating spread, it is what the majority of traders have). You can measure it with a special spread indicator you and find out what your broker did on Non-Farm Employment Change. And, if everything coincides - the economic calendar, your news indicator and the fact of the news release on local time - you did everything right. Remember these settings, or even better, save the corresponding template. Most of the indicators automatically determine everything right, but you do not have to rely solely on the indicator - it should still check (not to open 5 minutes before the Non-Farm by mistake). If it happened that the news came out and the market collapsed, and your indicator only shows an event in an hour or so, you need to change some parameters in the indicator settings (something like Offset Hours). Everything will be fine.

The most well-known indicators of this type: FFCal, NewsInfo, Truly News Indicator, Urdala_News.

Profit indicators

Based on the results of completed transactions, it is of fundamental importance to know the trade statistics: how many profitable trades, how many unprofitable trades; profit/loss in points, percentage, deposit currency and so on. Statistics in the trade is everything. Of course, traders are helped by services like Myfxbook, but in this case, you need to go to a third-party site (sometimes they also hang), wait for the data to be updated. And, with the use of statistical indicators, we will get all the information we need directly in the terminal here and now, quickly.

iProfit Tracker - one of the most popular indicators of profit/loss in points and percentage. Due to the popularity, there is a considerable amount of its modifications (they can all be downloaded from the link at the end of the article).

Equity - the indicator builds a line of depot growth/decline directly in the basement of the tool chart. There, in fact, everything is the same as in Myfxbook monitoring. For example, if you use trade without stops and with averaging, then it is the same as on Myfxbook, we will see a discrepancy between equity and balance lines.

Let’s consider another case - on one account trade was conducted by the expert adviser and manually. As a result, we have a lot of transactions, and it is unclear who traded better - a robot or a person. In this case, you need to separately calculate the orders opened by hand, and the orders of the expert. This can be done in this way - each order has a Magic number (the manually opened usually have number 0 (zero), open by the robots are numbered, for example, 2222 (you can see it in the Advisor’s settings). In the indicator, for example, ProfitInfo v1.5.2 - on the screenshot below -

we select the filter by a magic number (the top line of the settings, the -1 mark means that the indicator takes into account absolutely all orders) and it will only count those orders that have the Magic number that we need.

The most well-known indicators of this type: Equity, i-Profit, Stats_Indicator, TradeHistory.

Indicators for lot calculation

As you know, money management on forex is half the success. Despite the fact that hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written on this issue, a great many participants continue to lose their deposits due to an inadequate MM. And, the majority quite understands, that risks in a range of 5-10-15% on the transaction can easily take all your deposit.

Indicators for lot calculation are designed to help the trader in determining the appropriate amount of risk relative to the size of the deposit and the amount of stop orders. In addition to the established risk in percent, do not forget about the phenomenon of slippage - stop orders can be executed at one or two points worse, and you will lose a little more (and if your stop hits gap or news, then it can be 2-3 times more than you set). The market is unfair, remember that.

Lot Size Calc - a very convenient indicator for calculating the size of the lot relative to the stop order, I personally use it for many years. In the settings, we specify the stop loss size in points (old ones) and the risk in percents. The indicator does the calculation on its own, it will calculate the size of the lot.

MAX_LOT - indicator considers the maximum lot for one transaction taking into account the size of the leverage. Any shoulder (leverage) can be set in the settings - there will be a recalculation of the data.

The most well-known indicators of this type are lot size calc, mmi, MoneyManagement.

Spread and swap indicators

Watching for the spread size (the difference between the price of buying and selling) for intraday traders, for M1/ M5 scalpers is fundamentally important. For them, the lower this value, the better. The size of the spread (which can be fixed or floating) depends on the type of account, on the market situation.

In general, it is worthwhile to know when spreads are particularly large and it is not worth entering the market at these moments for intraday traders (this does not apply to those traders who trade on D1 - there stops and profits are measured in hundreds of points and worrying about 2 or 8 points of the spread does not make sense):

• on Monday in the first minutes at the opening of the market;
• on Friday in the last minutes before closing the market;
• when moving from one day to another - every day;
• important news (decisions on interest rates of the Central Bank, speeches of the heads of the Central Bank and presidents of some countries, and so on);
• Force-majeure situations such as Brexit.

All the rest of the time spread, as brokers in trading conditions on ECN/NDD/STP accounts say, may be almost zero, or within half of the point (for the example of the known pair EURUSD).

IND Monitoring - the indicator displays the spread in the form of a histogram. Here you can see, especially in the news, how the price of buying and selling on a particular instrument spreads.

In the example above, in addition to the indicated indicator (in the basement), two spread indicators are also set for measuring it online. As can be seen from the histogram and the huge M1 candles - important news on the EURUSD pair came out and the spread was greatly expanded by the broker.

CandleSpread_modern - the indicator besides the spread value shows the time before the candle closes. From the features, in the settings you can set a certain spread threshold (the top line of the settings) above which the indicator of the indication will show in red (the color can be selected as well). It is a very useful function for intraday traders, a kind of red traffic light: the spread is large – I should not enter the market (and sometimes it happens). Everything is adjusted here - size/color/font.

There are many spread indicators. Some of them display a fixed numerical value online, others display the readings in the form of a basement histogram. So, you can see the history of the broker’s spreads within the day, on different types of accounts, on different instruments, compare spreads from different brokers. There are also indicators that record all this information in a file - it can be useful when testing some advisers.

Swap is a charge for transferring a position in a day. First of all, this information can be relevant for long-term traders who hold a position for several days or weeks - in the end, the amount of accruals can be a pleasant addition to the transaction amount (if it is positive for your position). Swap can be positive and negative, usually in the middle of the week it is charged in triple size (for example, in Roboforex the day of the triple swap is Wednesday). Information on swaps can be found on the broker’s website in the specifications for the trading instrument, you can right-click on the instrument in your MT4 terminal and select the “Specifications” item and look there. Well, you can just use the profile indicator.

ZFXiSwap - indicator shows swaps (and not only) on several instruments at once.

Spread swap - spread and swap, simply and without frills.

The most well-known indicators of this type are Candle Time & Spread, Candle_Spread, IND Monitoring, Spread History, spread swap.

Older timeframes candle indicators

In many strategies, you need to compare to the situation on an older timeframe - as is known, the more time, the stronger and better the signal. And, if you have several currency pairs at work, and two or even three charts with different time intervals. Switching between them all the time will be quite inconvenient. But, there is a solution – there exist indicators that can display candlestick charts and bars from different instruments and timeframes on the main work schedule where you open positions.

stratman-minichart - one of the most famous indicators. I can only say, the indicator is quite popular and there are many of its various modifications, but they are similar in functionality and management, and you will not have any problems with the configuration.

MultiInstrument - indicator directly in the window of your tool will show the tool hart that you type in the settings (the example below shows the EURAUD pair on the GBPUSD chart). Convenient.

MCP Multi Charts - this indicator will be in the basement window and show several charts of different currencies at the same time, indicating the OHLC prices - opening, high, low, closing …

There are also modifications, where in addition to showing other tools, you can use some technical indicators - for example, with moving averages. In one word, the trader’s choice is enormous.

The most well-known indicators of this type are stratman-minichart, OverLayChart, MultiInstrument, MultiCharts.

Informaiton panels

For those who do not want to clutter up the schedule with several info indicators – there are information panels, where all the necessary data is in one window, everything can be set and configured. Thus - one indicator replaces several at once. There is a huge amount of Info panels, we’ll see a couple of them.

P4L Clock - in this panel, you have time, spread, ADR and much more. The peculiarity of the indicator is that you can turn on and off literally each line, so we can leave only what we need. There is no need to mention about placing in any part of the chart or any basement of another indicator - here it is all implemented.

Infopanel TSLS - very simple panel - in one window we have spread, swap, current time and information about the leverage.

The most well-known indicators of this type are Bid_View2.0, infoboard, THV4 InfoPanel, InfoPanel.

Different useful indicators

In addition to the indicators discussed above, there are many other useful ones that one way or another can be useful for a trader’s work. For example:

Truly ScreenShot Indicator 1.35 - screenshots indicator, which is detailed in one of the materials on the site. No one will argue that sometimes it is very important to take a screenshot to save your deal, maybe fix some mistake of the broker of an excessively large spread and so on. There can be many situations. Also, an advantage is the fact that there is no need to install third-party programs on the computer, configure them, search for a folder, where the screenshot is saved. Here all the work is like with the usual indicator. In addition, this indicator can take screenshots on the machine with a certain user-defined algorithm. Even manual intervention is not required, everything will be done as instructed by the trader.

CandleBodySize (and various modifications) - indicator considers the candle size in points. In view of its popularity in certain strategies, many mods have been made and various additional functions have been added.

i-Breakeven (and various modifications) - indicator shows the break-even level of the open order or an order grid. If you are lazy to calculate, then this process is already automated.

daily_data_3_1 - legendary info indicator, has many modifications, all of them are included in the set. In the example below, all keys are clickable. We just leave on the chart what we need.

DrawProfit v3.0.3 - indicator displays closed trades on the chart. It can also show the result of transactions: in points, in the deposit currency, in points, and in currency. Well, and mark the levels of stop and take (I have this option disabled on the screen). Very useful one.

Unfortunately, here I couldn’t tell you about all the useful indicators, but it’s not necessary.

The most well-known indicators of this type: there is a great variety of them.

Conclusion

As you already understood from the review, there are hundreds of indicators-assistants of different names, and the most popular and demanded among traders have dozens of different modifications. Thus, each trader will be able to choose the tool necessary for his job, adjust it for himself, for his own purposes and tasks, and conduct successful work in the market. I recommend that you get acquainted with the set of information indicators in the archive - you can find some useful trifle for your terminal that you have been looking for for a long time. And, if the necessary one is not found, then there is always something similar. Good luck and see you again!

Download a set of information indicators

Take care, Michael

ForexTraderPortal.com