Summary questions from a newbie

[Cocodude]

Hi,

I'm new to trading and have been spending the last few weeks reading up on technical analysis, FOREX, spread betting etc. I'm a software engineer and am interested in seeing what I can do with some form of automated trading. However, it's quite difficult to guage the current situation regarding this and I think an FAQ of some sort (or just comments to this thread) would be appreciated.

From my point of view (i.e. that of a newbie), when trying to find out stuff on MetaTrader, this is what I've been able to gather. I'd appreciate it if these statements could be confirmed and comments added:

1. MetaTrader 3 allowed you to write scripts that could perform automatic trades on your behalf.

2. MetaTrader 4 does not have this facility and no way has been found to do this.

3. Many online brokers are moving over or have moved over to the MT4 platform and MT3 is no longer supported. What providers remain that still allow for MT3 and are they likely to support MT3 in the future?

4. Are there any other free tools available that enable you to perform automatic trades based on a number of rules?

I may even have the total wrong end of the stick here, but I'd greatly appreciate it if people could confirm these details.

Thanks,

Marc

[scorpion]

Welcome to fxfisherman Marc!

Originally Posted by Cocodude

1. MetaTrader 3 allowed you to write scripts that could perform automatic trades on your behalf.

Yes, it's called Expert Advisor. Its file extension is .mql. In addition to mql script, you can write your own automated trading software on top of the mt3 low-level api in case you find mql is so limited.

Originally Posted by Cocodude

2. MetaTrader 4 does not have this facility and no way has been found to do this.

Yes, mt4 also has expert advisor. Its file extension is .mq4. But mt4 has no low-level api.

Originally Posted by Cocodude

3. Many online brokers are moving over or have moved over to the MT4 platform and MT3 is no longer supported. What providers remain that still allow for MT3 and are they likely to support MT3 in the future?

Most mt3 brokers have moved to mt4 already. Some (like FXDD) will continue running mt3 as long as their clients need it, while some (like InterbankFX) will run it only a few more months. The future is uncertain...

Originally Posted by Cocodude

4. Are there any other free tools available that enable you to perform automatic trades based on a number of rules?

I've coded a tool ZeroCode to enable non-programmers to write own MQL expert advisor. It's incompleted though...

[Cocodude]

Originally Posted by scorpion

Yes, mt4 also has expert advisor. Its file extension is .mq4. But mt4 has no low-level api.

Thanks for your reply, scorpian!

So, in summary, you can do automatic trading to some extent with MT4, but only using their mql language. However, with MT3, we can use the low-level API to fully create our own programs to perform trading on our behalfs?

What is your (and the opinion of others on this board) of MT4's (and MT3's) in-built language? Does it seem flexible enough to do some reasonably complicated calculations?

Thank you,

Cocodude

[scorpion]

As you're new to mt, go straight to mt4 because mt3 is obsolete already--sooner or later it will completely diminish.

MQL4 is sufficient enough for complex calculations. You can even import/call functions in external dll file, but main limitation is you cannot call from external programs, so you cannot integrate your own exising VB or C# code, for example, with mt4 platform. Another main problem is you have to learn the mql4 language which is similair to C.