How to add indicators in cTrader
Installing the indicators on your
cTrader software is very easy if you know your way around the computer, but it may be quite complicated if you’re not too well versed in technology. But worry not, the process is simple enough to explain to everybody, so let’s try and break it down into several steps.
Steps for installing indicators on cTrader:
- Download the indicators
- Find the file you’ve downloaded
- Find your cTrader folder
- Copy/paste the indicator file into your cTrader > Indicators folder
- Restart cTrader if you have it open
The best cTrader indicator download location is the cTrader website itself. The company behind this software learned from their competitors that providing tools from their own website has a much more positive effect for both producers and consumers of these tools.
In many cases, the indicators you will find on cTrader’s website have been tested and approved by professionals, meaning that you always get what you bargained for.
In most cases, the indicator you download from the cTrader website will automatically be installed on your software. But, if you download it from somewhere else, a manual installation may be required.
The most important thing you should focus on in this guide to cTrader indicators is the location of the indicator file once you’ve downloaded it. It will most likely be either in your “Downloads” folder or on your desktop.
Once you’ve found it simply right-click on it and press copy. Later you will have to find the folder of your cTrader software, find the “Indicators” folder inside of it and just right click and press paste. The indicator will then display on your software once you’ve restarted.
Now that we’ve covered the installation process of the indicators, let’s talk about the indicators themselves.
cTrader support and resistance indicator
The support and resistance indicator, also known as the Pivot Points indicator is one of the most useful tools that a trader could have.
The role of this tool is to calculate the average closing prices of trading sessions way before today. The trader can decide how far back he or she wants the indicator to calculate. The most optimal number so far has seen to be a month or so.
Once this exchange rate is determined, the Pivot Point indicator then calculates the most likely price points the exchange could either drop or rise to. These are what we call the support and resistance levels. Support is for dropping and resistance is for rising.
Without a doubt, the Pivot Point tool is one of the best cTrader indicators for Forex traders out there right now.
The volume indicator
A volume indicator is a trading tool that helps people see the activity within the market. The reason why this is very important is that the market mostly works on the supply/demand basis. If there is a lot of supply but not that much demand, the prices will start going down, and if there’s a lot of demand but not enough supply the prices will start going up.
By looking at the volume provided by the indicator, traders can quickly understand what state the market is in right now. Is there a surplus of demand or supply? This is one of the many questions that the volume indicator helps answer.
When it comes to cTrader indicators comparison, it’s very hard to name the best tool, but so far volume is the most “relevant” tool in terms of trading. The reason is that it is the only thing that can find the real answer to market trading volumes. Calculating it manually is almost impossible.
For example, Imagine that there are 1000 people looking to buy 0.1 lot of USD/JPY each, but there is only one person selling 100 lots of USD/JPY. On the surface, it looks like there is more demand than supply because there are more buyers, right? Well, when looking at the volume it is immediately clear that the supply and demand are equal, so price movement is not very likely.
Strength Meter
The strength meter, as already mentioned in the intro is not necessarily an active best cTrader indicator for free that you can get. It is mostly a background tool that helps set your future analysis up rather than set your trades up.
The most basic explanation of the tool is that it helps you find what currencies are strong and which ones are weak on the FX market. For example, try to imagine the growth of the USD/JPY currency pair’s exchange rate. Sure there is growth, but why is there growth? Is it because the USD is getting weaker or stronger? These questions are essential to be answered if you want your trade to always focus on a well-performing currency pair.
The strength meter has a 1-10 rating system. The higher the number, the stronger the currency is. The strength meter is used to pair strong currencies with weaker ones once the additional analysis has been done with other tools.
cTrader Measure Charting Tool
cTrader Measure Charting Tool was developed by the cTrader’s parent company Spotware corp. The Measuring tool is completely free of any charge and traders can easily get this tool from the cTrader webpage. The program is created using the C# programming language.
cTrader Measure Charting tool allows traders to measure an area of chart in terms of number of bars, amount of time, price delta, price percentage change, and volume. It should be mentioned that this indicator doesn’t come standard with the platform. In other words, traders will not get the Measure tool simply by installing or updating cTrader. Traders need to visit the cTrader web page and install it manually.
In order to install the indicator, simply download it and click on it, the cTrader platform will automatically open/in case it isn’t already open and then you can follow the process. As the second option, if you are unable to open the indicator, it simply means that your computer doesn’t recognise algo files. If that is the case, you will need to open the algo file using the windows explorer.
When drawn onto the charts, the indicator gives traders highly important information. The indicator calculates the following information:
- Bars: When a trader draws the indicator on the chart between two price points that needs to be analyzed, the indicator automatically counts the number of candles (Bars) between the starting point on the left and the endpoint to the right, in other words, for the whole zone.
- Time: This indicator also gives out information about the amount of time between the two points.
- Price Delta: Price delta is also displayed for the selected area in absolute and relative terms.
- Volume: Tick volume is also calculated and measured by the tool.
If a trader decides that the indicator is no longer needed for analyzing the price direction in the given area, the indicator can be easily removed from the chart, just click on the shaded zone and press delete button or right click your mouse and choose delete.
cTrader Forex Trading Sessions Clock
Timing the trades is critical for success in Forex trading. There are 4 major trading capitals that contribute to Forex trading availability around the clock during business days. When one trading session ends, another one opens, and traders have the ability to place orders 24/5.
While it is true that cTrader displays the names of active trading sessions on its platform, the information is condensed and not presented in a way that gives traders a good idea when one session starts and starts the other. This issue can be solved by installing the cTrader Forex Trading Sessions Clock.
cTrader Forex Trading Sessions Clock indicator was developed by the cTrader’s parent company, Spotware corporation. And the indicator is completely free to use. On the downside, it doesn’t come with the platform, and traders need to visit the developer’s web page and download/install it manually. The installation process is similar to any other indicator installation process on the cTrader. It’s required to download the file and simply click on it and follow the instructions.
The indicator clock displays information on 4 main trading sessions from 4 major financial Capitals:
- Sydney Session: Represents the Asia-Pacific region.
- Tokyo Session: Represents the Asian region.
- London Session: Represents Europe.
- New York Session: Represents North America.
Each session has its own characteristics, for example, London and New York sessions are known to be the most active with high volatility and volumes. These 2 sessions are mainly exploited by day traders and professional traders, as during high liquidity market spreads are minimal. In addition, active markets bring more trading opportunities.
cTrader Candlestick Patterns Alerts
This indicator is especially useful for technical traders. By the help of this tool, traders can easily spot and be sure to never miss candlestick patterns as soon as they’re formed. Japanese candlesticks such as: Hammer, Morning Star, Three Black Crows, and others play an important role in technical analysis. The indicator helps detect, real-time, 34 different candlesticks on the price chart. In addition, the indicator helps automatically detect trends. It comes with customizable colors for bullish, bearish, and neutral trends. The indicator can also send signals to traders using sound pop-ups, telegram, and email.
The indicator is one of the top and highly rated among Forex traders. On the downside, there’s no free version available and traders need to purchase it in order to be able to use it.