Synergy FX, a leading Australian forex broker, releases their new trading account with ECN pricing for professional forex traders using the Meta Trader 4 platform

In a move to expand their overall product offering, Synergy FX now offers their Standard Account and an ECN Account.

Importantly, forex traders have the opportunity to practice their trading in either account in the Synergy FX forex demo account.

Suitable for all style of traders, the demo environment is ideal for both currency trading for beginners as well as professional traders to test their forex trading strategies in a practice environment before switching over to the live account.

Manual traders can access Meta Trader 4′s wide range of technical indicators and powerful charting tools to test and confirm their trading decisions.

For automated forex trading strategies such as Expert Advisors and forex robots, traders can import the forex trading system onto the Synergy FX Meta Trader 4 platform to test the programme in the demo environment.

Source: www.sfgate.com

We at Interbank FX are seeing more and more traders using Expert Advisors and algorithms in their trading, so we decided to create this infographic about algorithmic trading in the FX market.

Source: www.ibfx.com

Russian Federation (IBwire.com – May 26, 2011) MetaQuotes Software Corp., a world leader in the retails Forex software market, today launched the Automated Trading Championship 2011, an annual competition of trading robots under which,  anyone can register as a participant and compete for the prize money of $80,000.

Registration for participation is open from June 1 to September 23, 2011, and is free of charge. The Championship will start on the 3rd of October and will end on the 23rd of December.

Sponsored by MIG Bank, Go Markets Pty Ltd, Vantage FX and Forex-TSD, the Automated Trading Championship 2011 is developed in the MQL5 language for programming trading strategies. The main goal of the Championship is to popularize automated trading. The competition allows solving another important task – accumulation of unique information about the most significant achievements in the field of trading robots creation, because the Automated Trading Championship provides an unprecedented opportunity for the best professionals to test their theories in practice.

From year to year, struggling for the prize of $80,000, hundreds of users from all over the world submit their MQL-developments for the Championship. However, this year’s Championship will be special. This will be the world’s first competition of trading robots able to trade not only on the Forex, but also in the stock market. Moreover, the extended functionality of the MetaTrader 5 client terminal and the release of the MQL5 Wizard will entail a significant increase of the number of Participants.

“Over 300 Expert Advisors participated in the previous Championship”, Stanislav Starikov, the Championship Jury member, said.

“This year the number will increase substantially – we expect to receive several thousands of applications for participation. The reason for this surge lies in the recently released MQL5 Wizard, using which any trader without programming skills can easily create a trading robot. Though, this would not guarantee a victory in the Championship, of course,” Starikov said.

Source: www.ibtimes.com

We are pleased to announce the release of a new version of the MQL5 Wizard. This version contains an important function: now trading robots can be created based on different combinations of symbols. This innovation allows using sophisticated analysis and getting more accurate signals. Ultimately this will increase the number and variety of automated trading programs created using the Wizard. Currently the MQL5 Wizard includes about 20 trading signals that can be combined to produce a variety of different algorithms.

With the release of the Wizard the distance between a trader and an MQL5 Programmer has been reduced to a minimum. These new features open up new horizons to ordinary traders. All the exciting technologies that used to be the prerogative of experienced EA developers, are now available to the large army of traders. All that you need for creating your own robot is the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal and a few minutes. In just a few clicks you can create a trading robot based on any elaborate strategy.

This is a truly revolutionary step in the development of automated trading. Never before has this technology gone beyond the scope of MQL-developers. Now the rich functionality of the MQL5 environment is available to any trader. Install the MetaTrader 5 Client Terminal and start writing your own Expert Advisors. And it does not matter whether you have programming skills or not.

“We have decided to make automated trading available to a wide range of traders , – says Renat Fatkhullin, CEO of MetaQuotes Software Corp. – We in MetaQuotes have done a lot to catalyze the development of automated trading. But the most important step is just beginning – automated trading goes beyond the community of MQL-developers and is becoming finally available to the masses!”

Source: www.metaquotes.net

Pepperstone Launches Multi Account Manager (MAM) Tool for Professional Traders of Multiple Forex Accounts

Pepperstone a leading provider of online foreign exchange (FOREX, FX) trading services, has announced the launch of Multi Account Manager (MAM) trading on the popular MetaTrader 4 platform for clients across the globe.

Pepperstone is pleased to announce the launch of another service called Multi Account Manager (MAM). The system being offered by Pepperstone is a trading software solution which offers a flexible and user friendly interface, allowing the simultaneous viewing, trading and tracking of multiple accounts. This is key for asset managers and professional traders of managed accounts who may need to trade multiple accounts simultaneously with a single order at the same price.

Specificly designed for Money Managers that utilize the Metatrader 4 platform – MAM is ideal for traders that manage multiple accounts utilizing Expert Advisors (EA’s). MAM broadens the functionality of the Metatrader 4 Platform by enabling the Money Manager to effectively trade and manage multiple accounts from a single MT4 interface.

Owen Kerr, CEO of Pepperstone, says of the MAM software: “This solution gives our asset managers and professional traders a considerable advantage and time-saving tool. Using MAM, they can easily and immediately take advantage of market conditions and opportunities across several trading accounts”

Pepperstone is one of the fastest growing providers of online foreign exchange (“FOREX”, “FX”) trading services globally. The catalyst behind Pepperstone’s success has been the dedication to invest in institutional-level online trading technologies and to deliver world-class customer service. Individual traders, money managers and institutional clients worldwide benefit from an Award winning platform, Meta Trader 4, and from comprehensive market analysis as well as educational tools to enhance their online trading experience.

“The retail Forex market is maturing rapidly, and clients are beginning to ask for more than what the traditional forex brokers are offering. They want a complete package,” says Owen Kerr “To go beyond what our competition offers, we provide access to FX market liquidity previously reserved for top tier financial institutions only. We believe this is unique for a retail Forex service provider, and this is not only a result of Pepperstone’s efforts to enrich its institutional-level service offering to retail customers – it is yet another sign of the emerging importance of retail Forex.”

Source: www.americanbankingnews.com

Boston Technologies’ client advocacy group recently completed the VPS Customer Satisfaction Research of Q4 2010. After reaching out to all of our VPS-using clients, we were able to collect an overwhelming number of responses and data. We have a solid amount of information for upper management to base the innovative direction of the next quarter for our Virtual Private Server service.

The ten-question survey asked clients to rate different aspects of the service we provide, one through five, one being “poor” and five being “excellent”. The final two questions required short answer responses that allowed the clients to add comments and suggest services they would like to see.

As VPS is our fastest growing product, we left no stone unturned when seeking out what our clients are looking for and where improvements need to be made.  Before the survey, Boston Technologies had been preparing for a simple way for clients to access their VPS via iPhones, BlackBerries, iPads and other handheld devices, but before we began development on the project, we wanted to get a deeper understanding our clients’ needs.  Surprisingly the clients surveyed showed little interest in mobile VPS capability, and so we will be prioritizing other developments above this project.

We also discovered through the survey that the amount of resources allotted per VPS is sometimes not enough for traders who run a series of very aggressive Expert Advisors or even multiple accounts at the same time. Another request was for an all-inclusive setup for creating the MT4 login through our automatic system, mapping to a bank trading account and then setting up the VPS. We learned that clients prefer the simplicity of one option to having multiple choices.

Source: www.bostontechnologies.com

At times traders may need to perform a time synchronization task when expert advisor is working. Prohibition or permission for orders opening in certain time spans during 24 hours, cancellation of suspended orders after certain time, prohibition against work of the expert advisor on holidays, trade permission only at news-time etc. may be required.

Time in MetaTrader 4 client is read from the server and depends on the brokers configuration. Normally, time on the brokers server is set to their local time. MetaTrader 4 has on means for determination or automatic adjustment of the time zone. There is a possibility at our disposal to know the server time and local time of the computer on which the MetaTrader 4 client is working. Accordingly, if we use such dimensions as hours, minutes or even specific dates then we have to provide correspondence between local time and time on the server. This task is owned by the trader, while the programmer considering the above limitations can provide only the means for configuration.

With respect to zero meridian, time can have a shift of -12 to +12 hours. I.e. within 24 hours. however, two dates fall within this span. These are the current date (from 0 to +12) and previous date (from -12 to 0).

Let’s take a look at an example.

Expert advisor has to work only during the session at NYSE. NYSE is opened at 9:30 AM and closed at 4:00 PM as per Eastern Time. If the time will be converted to Greenwich Mean Time, then we will have GMT-5. We have to configure the expert advisor to work during this time. If we are located at the GMT-0 zone, then for correct synchronization we have to know our location with respect to zero meridian as well. E.g., our time zone is GMT+1. Thus, time difference makes up 6 hours. As the reference point is time on the side of the Metatrader 4 terminal, then the relative time shift will be -6 hours.

Let’s move on to specific figures and computations. Local time on trader’s computer is 2:00 PM. We find the time in New York by shifting the current time 6 hours back. We get 8:00 AM. It is too early for the expert advisor to operate; the stock exchange is not opened yet. The exchange will open when the local time will be equal to 3:30 PM.

Let’s summarize. If the expert advisor has the TimeShift configuration, then the task of the trader is to know the difference between the local time and the time of event for which the expert advisor has to be configured. If local time precedes the required event, then the shift will have the “+” sign, and if local time follows the event, then the shift will have the “-“ sign.

by Alexey Koshevoy, AirBionicFX founder and CEO