Creating an MQL4 Expert Advisor: Opening New Perspectives in Trading in the Market

Dear trader, have you ever thought about how to create an MQL4 Expert Advisor? Exactly create it, not order it from a professional programmer. In fact, the task is not so difficult. The advantages are obvious: it saves you money on freelancing services and allows you to create your own Expert Advisors. The skill is not going anywhere! This is not to mention the pleasure of the fact that you yourself have created a working MQL4 Expert Advisor, which can potentially make a profit in the automatic mode.

Мастер-класс «Создание торгового робота»

• Creating a trading robot: from A to Z
• The first stage of creating a trading robot
• Putting in order and adding a tralling stop
• The robot was sleeping and we were working

Starting to create an MQL4 Expert Advisor

To get started, you'll need the basics MQL4 programming language.

Also MT4 Help (can be called by pressing F1 in the terminal) and MetaQuotes Language Editor Help (press F4 in MT4 terminal, then F1) will help newcomers.

You can take a ready-made program apart - which commands are used, how they work, etc. Or you can start by writing simple trading algorithmso that in the future you can apply new commands to the ready "backbone" or modify ready commands. I.e., from simple to more complex.

When creating a trading robot you will definitely need advice and recommendations from those traders (programmers) who already have some experience in this field. A lot of useful information can be found on forums of traders who use MQL4 or MQL5. There you can get answers to almost any question related to writing trading advisors and beyond.

MQL4 Expert Advisor - tips from experienced programmers

As soon as you have an opportunity to test a piece of code or a function, do it immediately. Later, when the program grows to a large size, it will be more difficult to test its correctness.

Pieces of code that are repetitive would be better designed as separate functions.

No need to strive to write optimal code. First, create something that will work correctly - even if the code is ugly or cumbersome. This can be fixed later by optimizing the code.

You should not hesitate to use your own algorithms, despite the availability of ready-made or seemingly more perfect ones. The priority is on the correctness of the program, which is impossible without understanding how this or that algorithm works. The algorithms you create are more accessible to you and easier to optimize.

Debugging problem

Writing an indicator or Expert Advisor knowing the MQL4 language and its built-in functions is quite simple. Another thing is whether everything will work properly? Debugging the ready program takes a lot of time, because MT4 has neither debugger, nor program debugger.

The debugging process boils down to an uninteresting manual review of Expert Advisor's trading results, review of logs and subsequent code corrections. If MQL4 Expert Advisor is simple and has a few commands, then it's OK. But there are complicated MTS (Mechanical Trading Systems) with a huge amount of thousands of lines of program code.

Therefore, real working trading programs should be simple - first of all for understanding. The higher are the chances that the Expert Advisor will trade correctly according to the specified algorithm.

In addition, creating an EA is a creative process. Everything starts in the head, and only then do the lines of program code end up in the file on the computer. Then there is debugging, performance testing, and optimization of the program.

Creating an MQL4 Expert Advisor - Simplify the Process

You can simplify your task in two ways. The first is to use ready-made blocks (function libraries), created by yourself or another trader (programmer). The second - the use of special programs.

For the first method, the pieces of program code that can be found on the above forums or that you personally created are well suited. The main thing is that you must understand how this bit of code works. And the rest is a matter of technique.

The second method uses alternative programs that simplify the process of creating an MQL4 Expert Advisor. This is something like the Wizard in Windows applications - each step is described and easy to understand even for those who are not MQL4 programmers.

As you can see, it's not that hard. The main thing is to learn the basics of MQL4, and the rest will take care of itself. With a little practice, you will create your own MQL4 Expert Advisor. Then another one, and another one... And there are new perspectives in front of you!