Currency Strength Meter

I've attached the indicator I've had made. It will show you 3 things:

Overall strength of individual currencies.Rate of change in strength (strengthening/weakening) of individual currenciesPairs whose currencies are diverging away from each other most strongly

For me personally I am most interested in which currencies are gaining or losing strength rather than their overall strength reading. You should be aware that the strength readings on this indicator, like all strength meters, will vary from any and all other strength indicators. I'm yet to see two different indicators which calculate the strength in exactly the same way. So the readings on this may look slightly different to what you get on your preferred indicator.

There are 2 graphs shown permanently. The left most graph showing blue lines is the strength meter and will show the overall strength or weakness of a currency. A low value of 1 means a weak currency, and a high value of 10 means a strong currency.

The second graph showing red and green bars displays the rate of change of a currency. The more bars being displayed, the greater the rate of change. Red signifies a weakening currency and green signifies a strengthening currency. It is possible to have a currency with a high strength reading on the blue graph, simultaneously having very high red reading on the rate of change graph showing that it is weakening fast. This is the graph I am personally most interested in.

There is a third set of graphs which will not always be visible. This will display the appropriate "pairs" which are containing currencies which are diverging away from each other most rapidly. If no currencies are diverging then no pairs will appear in this area. If currencies are diverging, then one or more pairs may appear. Take a look at the image example below for 3 different situations you will get with this indicator.

Now an important thing to remember with this indicator is I have had it built on my personal ideas which I had to try and explain to a coder in terms that involved zero technical knowledge. I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I had no idea "how" to achieve (i.e. what mathematical calculations were needed). Therefore there is every likelihood that this indicator as it stands at the moment, is not as good as many others available. I would ask that anyone who is interested in this, to please play about with it and test it out. If you find faults or ways to improve it, please share with the rest of us on here.

I hope this is of some use to at least a few people.Thanks

The parameters:

Currencies: the currencies you are measuring against each other. By default this is set to - EUR,GBP,USD,JPY,CHF,CAD,AUD,NZDSymbolFixes: this is empty by default, but if your broker uses prefix or suffix, you enter it here. For example if your broker symbols are "mEURUSD" you enter "m". If your broker symbols are "EURUSDm" you enter ",m". If your broker symbols are "mEURUSDx" you enter "m,x". TimeFrame: Set to 0 by default and this will match the time frame of the chart you attach the indicator to. You can of course change this value to anything you like (1,60,240 etc)StrSmoothing: This is a smoothing period MA to smooth out the reading on the strength graph (shown in blue).ChgSmoothing: This is a smoothing period MA to smooth out the reading on the rate of change graph (shown in red/green).ChangePeriod: This is the number of bars from which to calculate the rate of change. So if this is set to 5, the indicator will measure the amount of change in a currency over the last 5 bars, and then compare it to the base point for the change period.BaseStr: This is the point in the past from which to measure the strength of a currency. So if set to 120, it will measure the strength of the currency over the last 120 periods.BaseChg: This is the point in the past from which to measure the rate of change of a currency. So if set to 30, it will use the point 30 periods ago as a reference for then comparing the rate of change as measured over the last 5 periods as specified in the "ChangePeriod" mentioned above.ValueOfBar: Each bar in the graph (no need to change).StrLevels: Used for determining the levels 1-10 on the bar graph (no need to change)ChgLevels: Used for determining the levels 1-10 on the bar graph (no need to change)MinDivChgLevel: This specifies how many bars need to be filled on the rate of change graph before a currency is deemed to be changing rapidly. Default is set to 5. So if 2 or more currencies are on 5 or more bars each in the rate of change graph, a new graph will appear showing the pair which contains the currencies and in which direction to trade it (green for buy, red for sell)AllowAlert: Pop up box alert when a new pair is identified as diverging strongly.AllowSound: A sound alert when a new pair is identified as diverging strongly.RefreshOnTick: If set to true will update the indicator on every tick.RefreshInterval: If the refresh on tick variable is set to false, the indicator will update at the interval (in seconds) that you specify here.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Attached File

strMeter.mq4 13 KB | 1,683 download

If the strength meter was a typical wiggly line type affair in an indicator window with a zero level in the middle, and negative values below and positive values above, then the following levels (set as default) would correspond to the number of bars drawn. So.....

less than -45 = zero bars displayed.-45 to -35 = 1 bar-35 to -25 = 2 bar-25 to -15 = 3 bar-15 to -5 = 4 bar-5 to 5 = 5 bar5 to 15 = 6 bar15 to 25 = 7 bar25 to 35 = 8 bar35 to -45 = 9 bar45 and above = 10 bar

Now apparently the settings I have as default work well on low time frames, but would be too small on higher time frames. So if the default settings were used on a daily chart, all the currencies would look to be either extremely strong or extremely weak. So we need to change these settings depending on the time frame we are using, but I have no idea what should be used. This needs some testing out.

Now the levels for ChgLevel (relevant to the rate of change graph) work in a similar way, but I REALLY have no idea about this. This takes a coder to look at and figure out.

So the default settings are good for use on small intraday time frames but not so good on the higher ones.

Anyone with any experience wants to play about with this to see how it functions on different settings, please share your findings. 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 aboveColours: 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.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Attached File

HYPERLINK "http://www.forexfactory.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=738685&d=1310319316" StrengthMeter.mq4

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=300750&page=2