Currency Strength Indicator

Bug,

I guess you've tried everything that I suggested in post #52? That got it working for me.

Agreed, my strength indy is CPU intensive, although you can adjust the RefreshEveryXMins parameter to make it less so.

Personally, I've found strength indys an invaluable help, especially on the longer TFs, where I believe macroeconomic factors play their part in creating some decent moves. For example, my indy on a daily/weekly has shown that the pair to be in at present is short GBPCHF, and that's fallen around 450 pips in the last couple of weeks. Of course, as with all trend following systems, you win when the trends exist; you lose when the market is choppy. I don't think any strength indy is necessarily more 'profitable' than another - as with all indys, they show past behavior to date, the past can never predict the future with 100% accuracy; it's the market action that ultimately determines P/L. Just stating the obvious, of course.

David

Paul,

Many thanks for the tip - I'll give it a try.

David

Tried, didn't find it (I have Vista). Later googled it and found this: In Windows Vista and Windows 7 ClearType is turned on by default (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType). So...that can't be the answer to the problem.

I have great respect for you and I have enjoyed reading your posts, so it pains me to say this, but in addition to being CPU hungry I think your indicator is a bit of an overkill (the setup preparations, the settings etc.). Personally I find it too difficult to use compared to what I already use. I find relative strength to be an invaluable trading tool and I wouldn't want to go without one. However, I like to keep things as simple as possible. Some of the stuff out there is way too simplified, but to me, CCFp strikes a balance between the simple and the too complicated. I hope you get what I mean. I know it takes a lot of time and effort to code something like you did and my above comments are in no way meant to show disrespect. My preferences are just different than yours.

I most definitely agree with you. What is most intriguing in my opinion is that relative strength often starts deteriorating in advance of the price of the single pair in focus. If you then apply a little conventional TA to it you already posses an edge. That's my experience, at least.

Absolutely no offense taken. Agreed, it takes 30-60 minutes to set up the Recent Strength indy properly; one of my forex friends calls it "the beast". I've never seen or used CCFp.

It goes without saying that everybody should use whatever suits them. All of my non-commercial indys are written first and foremost for my own use, hence I selfishly tend to code functionality that suits me personally.

Anyway, getting off-topic now; time for me to leave this thread, especially as I have other work to attend to.

For sure. I'm just glad you and other people like you are so kind to share what they've built.

Thank you for all your help. See you around.

Because I could not get my head around modifying the posted strength meter (not enough brains I'm afraid) I played a little further with one that I was trying to build myself.

Have attached what I have done and not convinced it is exactly what you wanted but take a look and comments/ suggestions welcomed. (BUT I am not a coder so don't expect too much!).

flotsom, I do like your thinking on this.. Having confidence in your methods and tools is a must and that is what I see you pursuing,, Good goal..

I am wondering if there is a way to have it so when a new pair pops up on the screen in the 3rd group if it could in some way visually identify any new pair in that 3rd group... Like maybe a different color background or something behind the new pair to draw your attention to that pair..

I tried the alert function but it was going off all the time...

here is a screen shot of your indie.. the upper is a current 1hr time frame and the lower is a 4 hr .

just a little mtf look..

Futurespec - thanks for your contribution. I wish I was a coder to be able to input more of what I want. I'll have look at your indicator to see if there is anything I can incorporate in to my newer version.

Tommyd - You should be aware that this indicator is not accurate on higher time frames without adjusting the settings, and that includes the 1H and upwards. In the settings you will see the StrLevels input. That is set by default to work well with 1 minute charts and perhaps 5 minutes. As you move higher you would need to manually input new levels spaced wider apart to allow for wider and wider pip movements. If you use the default settings on higher time periods, the indicator will show all currencies to be either very strong or very weak which is not a true reflection of reality. This is obviously not an ideal situation.

Having seen this first attempt at what I am trying to achieve, I have now recognised more faults and specific aspects that I require, and so I am going back to my coder to have the whole indicator re-coded more closely to what I want. Hopefully by early next week he will have a more robust version for me which I will again post in here. Hopefully you will find it more useful and accurate.

The indicators that I use are very accurate on all timeframes with default settings and you can use the CCFp as an 'anchor' when adjusting the settings on your new indicator. Let's say you put your new indicator on the chart but you're not entirely sure whether the settings are correct for the given TF. If you add the CCFp (or another indicator that works well) you can compare the results. This way you should arrive at settings that reflect reality with more precision than what you would get without the comparison. Later, when all is done, you can just dump that CCFp and save your template.

@Futurespec
Thanks for sharing your indicator, a few questions:
Does the indicator works in any time frame? on any chart?
Which time frame is 5? min maybe?
Is it possible to turn the alarm on/ of?
Can you adjust the color of the fonts so i can use the indicator on a black background chart?

Here is how my charts look like. Pretty simple currency index for all time frames and
+5 indicates strong buy and -5 indicates strong sell.

Cheers!!!

gorangel...

I believe that I pointed out at the start of this thread that I am NOT a coder.
My indi came about 'cos I could not get my head around modifying Flotsom's indi.

I am not even convinced that it does what it should?

I provided it in the belief that you or anyone else could play around and modify it to your own needs... please feel free to do that.... and add comments good or bad.

Set the external variable 'mTimeFrame' to whatever number of minutes of the timeframe that you wish to use.

Removed alert.

Just put it on any chart.

Ext variable added so that you can change text colour.

It works for the pairs listed under 'aPair[] ' shown near the start of the code.

NOTE: Again my coding is not good enough and time not long enough to add in all the needed errror checking that would be needed to make it bomb proof for all users.

SO ..... use it, play with it, amend it, trash it, comment on it, use it as a base for something better etc etc etc.

I'm sorry if i offend you but i'm not a coder either , my only intention was to try your indi...
Anyway, thanks again and i will try the new version.

Hey gorangel

No offence taken, just trying to help

Hi Bug

I really would like to know how you used them and how you trade, if you do not mind.

Cheers
IB

I am using IBFX and the CC indicator does not show (attached). I now I have to change something but I have not any idea how and what. Can anybody help please?

Cheers
IB

I do mind. I have given a lot of clues and explanations of how I use relative strength indicators on this thread. That is more than enough to get you started. Learning to trade and to use indicators is a tough job and it takes time and effort to master. I have shared a few things here but I'm not going to start teaching people per se. Giving away stuff and knowledge doesn't work because people don't appreciate it. Sharing knowledge only works as long as one limits the amount shared to just enough to spark interest and give others a few ideas to work with and that's what this place is all about.

I suggest you read this thread, write down a few ideas and then go looking for more information and indicators (available on FF, TSD and elsewhere). Once you have the basic information and indicators you can start testing them out (make notes along the way) under different circumstances (volatile vs quiet, high TF vs low TF, Euro session vs US session, EURJPY vs USDJPY vs EURUSD etc.).

Good luck!

I don't have a clue, sorry.

Thank you for your response

IB

Attached below is the new strength meter I had made which you may or may not find of some use. As before, please note I am not a coder in any way shape or form; I have merely paid a coder to make something as per my instructions.......so I can not make any modifications to this, but others are free to.

This strength meter measures the overall strength of a currency on a "percentage" basis when compared to the other major currencies, and it measures this on a tick by tick basis rather than using Moving Averages as is the case with the CC indicators mentioned on this thread. For me, this makes this one more responsive and accurate for showing a currencies true strength "now".

When I say it measures as a percent basis, I mean in terms of how much a currency gains or loses compared to its price in a particular pair. For instance if the NZDUSD pair moves 80 pips higher, the USD has lost (very approximately) 1%. Whereas if the GBPUSD also moves 80 pips higher, the USD has only lost (again VERY approximately) 0.5%. So even though they have both moved the same 80 pips, in relative terms of percentage gained/lost, there is a vast difference. So this indicator measures percentage gains/losses rather than pips, as I again feel this is a much more accurate way to measure true strength when comparing currencies against one another.

There is a screen shot below to show how this should look and what each element is.

The indicator settings are as follows:


Currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, JPY, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD - These are the currencies the indicator is measuring against one another. So in total the indicator will be looking at approximately 28 pairs as offered on most MT4 brokers.
CurrDisplay: 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 - these relate to the above 8 currencies. If they are set to "1", the indicator will display information about that currency. If it is set to "0", the indicator will not display that particular currency. So for example, if you weren't interested in seeing any information about the AUD and NZD, you would set this input to: 1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0 - You should note that even if a currency is turned "off" here (set to 0), the indicator will still use that currency in all its calculations for comparing relative strength, but simply won't display the information for that individual.
SymbolFixes: This is for prefix and suffix used on some brokers and is empty by default. If your broker uses something like "mEURUSD" you enter "m". If your broker symbols are "EURUSDm" you enter ",m". If your broker symbols are "mEURUSDx" you enter "m,x".
ShowSignal: This is where you enter the particular currency pairs you are interested in trading and getting suggestions for (you will see an explanation of this in the attached image). If you're not interested in any trade suggestions, you can leave this empty. By default I believe there are about 8 pairs listed here, but you can have as many or few as you desire.
TimeFrame: Default is set to 0 which means the indicator will use the time frame of the chart it is attached to. But you can set this to any time frame you like by entering the minutes here (i.e. 60 for the 1 hour chart).
StrengthBase: Default set to 60. This is used for the line graph and the left hand bar chart and means the point in the past from which to measure the currencies strength. So if set to 60, the meter will calculate the percentage gains or losses for a currency compared to where it was 60 periods ago.
RecentCHBase: Default set to 10. This is exactly the same as the above input but is measuring over a shorter period. So if set to 10, the meter will calculate the percentage gains or losses for a currency compared to where it was 10 periods ago. My intention is to use this to determine if a currency is strong or weak in the same direction in the short term as it is in the long term.
ShowLineChart: Set to true means the line chart will display. Set to false means the line chart will not be displayed.
ShowBarChart: Set to true means the bar charts will display. Set to false means the bar charts will not be displayed.
UpdateOnTick: Set to true as default and means the indicator will update and make fresh calculations on every tick, giving real time representation of strength.
AllowAlert: Default false, but can set to true if you want a pop up alert to notify you when a currency pair trade suggestion is made.
AllowSound: Default false, but can set to true if you want a audible sound alert to notify you when a currency pair trade suggestion is made.
MinAlertIntv: default 30 means the alerts will not sound more than once if the same pair to trade suggestion is made more than once within 30 seconds. This is useful if due to the tick by tick nature of the updated calculations a pair [/b]suggestion may flicker on and off a few times before it stays on or off.
LineChartBars: 200 as default is the number of bars you can scroll back on the line chart indicator. Setting this too high can mean the indicator can look very narrow to compensate for the odd time when currency strength diverge to extreme distances.
LegendOffsety: meter position on the chart.
MeterPosition: as above
Colours: self explanatory for the individual currency display on the line chart. There is also a legend to show this on the actual indicator display.



Please take a look at the attached image for a brief explanation of what each element of the indicator does.



*Please note that this is not a trading signals indicator! It is only a tool which I personally find useful to help with trading decisions, and may be others will also find some use for it. It is not intended to instruct you to buy or sell on red/green. All this does is show relative currency strength and suggest certain pairs which contain favourably matched strong/weak currencies. How you trade this information is down to you.

Flotsom. Thanks v much for your continued input.
I am sure there are not many out there that would be willing to pay for an indi to be developed and then put it out for public use.

Great stuff.

Thanks again.